


Take No Prisoners

by Avdal



Series: The Ties that Bind [5]
Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015), Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Angst, Dubious Consent, Dubious Morality, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Enemies to Lovers, F/M, Imprisonment, Inappropriate Use of the Force, Kylo Ren Has Issues, Love/Hate, Masturbation, Molestation, Obsession, Obsessive Behavior, POV Rey (Star Wars), Romance, Trapped, Unrequited Love, Unrequited Lust, Unresolved Sexual Tension, creeper Kylo, discussion of past infidelity, prisoner, touch porn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-26
Updated: 2017-08-18
Packaged: 2018-10-10 23:39:25
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 48,612
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10450128
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Avdal/pseuds/Avdal
Summary: At a little past three in the morning, a thoroughly inebriated scavenger stumbled into her cheap hotel room on Coruscant and passed out face first onto the stained mattress.An unidentifiable amount of time later she woke up with a raging headache and a sizable gap in her memory.  The First Order issued suppression collar blocking her connection to the Force and the infuriatingly gloating presence looming over her told her all she needed to know.





	1. Ensnarement, Captivation, and Bloody Noses

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trying to get back into the swing of things after a 6 week absence. What better way to do that than with some handsy, Creepy Kylo action, right? And that’s a life hack that your creative writing teacher doesn’t want you to know about.

There was a very good reason that aspiring Jedis weren’t allowed to drink.

 

To the Jedi, alcohol was much more than just a drink. It represented impurity. An impurity in both mind and body, and a weakness of character that showed a lack of true commitment towards the path of the light. Far more importantly than that, however, was that it inevitably made smart people do stupid things.

 

That was simply the nature of the substance. No one ever pretended otherwise and the sole place for blame lay with those who chose to consume it despite knowing better.

 

Rey knew better. Absolutely. But there was no way that she was letting a little thing like reason and common sense get in the way of relaxing and finally having some _fun_.

 

No way around it, her whole life had been turned upside down in the blink of an eye. And then it just kept happening, again and again. Indeed. It had been a very ‘challenging’ few months. That was one way to put it. Not only was her new master a surprisingly strict disciplinarian who was simultaneously overprotective of her and determined to work her into absolute exhaustion during her training but… but then she still had to deal with _him_ every night.

 

Kylo. The psychotic traitor to both the light and his own family. Lunatic. Murderer. Nephew. Spoiled brat. And, finally, Bondmate. She could keep going, listing his sins one after the other, but it was that last one that was by far the most depressing.

 

Bonded forever… to _him_. Godsdamnit.

 

Rey had gotten much better at blocking him. Or at least she’d thought that she had. During the daytime she could now shove him so far away she could almost pretend that ‘ _The Thing’_ didn’t exist between them. Nighttime was trickier, though. Still possible for her to tune him out, but _good gods_ was he persistent when she was trying to meditate or sleep.

 

He’d figured out her schedule. He must have. No matter where in the galaxy he was, he always found time to wait until her guard dropped and he could pounce. Sometimes it worked, and sometimes it didn’t.

 

And then, just when she’d gotten very good at ignoring him, he had decided to get “creative”. Do something so… unspeakable, that she had no choice but to stop ignoring him. It was like dealing with a bratty child, in all honesty. Except a child probably wouldn’t pay off some cheap whore to-

 

Nevermind. No. Not going down that road again. What she needed to concentrate on instead

was having fun tonight. Harassment-free, responsibility-free fun. This was to be her very first personal time off from her training with Master Luke, and he had only given her one day of leave.

 

24 hours. That’s all the time she had to misbehave and make up for all the lost years of her adolescence. A lifetime wasted on fulfilling the needs of basic survival instead of the rite of passage task of finding oneself through booze and poor decisions.

 

24 hours. She took it as a personal challenge. Spring Break blended together with Rumspringa on warp speed. Grab Finn. Grab Poe. Do shots of whatever the hell a ‘Cowboy Cocksucker’ is until they land on Coruscant. And then it was straight to the nearest dive bar for a night spent…

 

Spent on _what?_

 

What had happened next?

 

Rey really can’t remember. The shots. Yes, definitely. She did plenty of those. Then more shots. Mixing shots. Chugging straight from the bottle. Then...

 

Um… Blackout?

 

Ah, yes. The inevitable blackout. Unavoidable with the way her evening had progressed. Now, if she could force herself to open her eyes to the flickering light she detects from behind her lids, she was sure that she’d puke all over herself.

 

So maybe it was a good thing that she was apparently blindfolded. Is that how Rumspringa is actually supposed to work? You get so utterly trashed on your first time drinking that you never, ever can stomach the thought of doing it again?

 

Probably she still isn’t totally sober yet, because normally otherwise her lack of situational awareness would send her into a panic. And blindfolded? Yeah, that normally would be just a little bit of a concern.

 

But now it hurts to much to think, let alone to move her arms. And wherever she is, it’s warm. Borderline hot. That, combined with her raging hangover and desire to not puke on herself, lulls her back to sleep.

 

Hit the reset button, Rey. You’re still too drunk to deal with reality.

 

*

 

Consciousness re-returns to Rey in painful and far too bright waves.

 

Rolling nausea crashing down upon the rocks that make up her pounding head. The bile that she has to fight down only serving to remind her how horribly thirsty she is.

 

And she still can’t open her eyes. It didn’t matter before, when not puking mixed drinks geyser-style was the greatest priority in her life. But now it’s kind of an issue.

 

Still blindfolded?

 

Yeah. She’s still blindfolded. She probably should have been more upset about that earlier, but it was just so much easier to go back to sleep and deal with _that_ situation later.

 

It’s only when a cool, wet cloth is swiped across her face and the familiar smell of leather greets her nose that she realizes just how epically she’s fucked up.

 

“I hate you so much.”

 

She spits the words out reflexively. Gods, Luke is… Master Luke is going to have a conniption when he finds out what happened. He’s going to be so disappointed in her. She’s been pretty disappointed in herself, too, and not just for the poor decisions of last night.

 

“You’re not very good at it, are you?”

 

Rey had expected him to refute her pronouncement. Spout some nonsense about the Force or fate or how they were meant to be together. He liked to do that so much. Probably because he knew how acutely it annoyed her. Or at least that’s why she hoped.

 

But she’s also still miserably hungover, maybe still drunk, and it’s as if the cloth over her eyes is enough to obscure the meaning behind his question.

 

He clears his throat. Yes, that sounds about right for the depth of his sense of patience.

 

Good at what? No, she’s not going to ask him that. Not going to take his bait.

 

When she doesn’t answer, he sighs. It tickles the damp skin on her forehead and she jerks her head to the side. She’s tied up, also. And must have been for quite a while because she didn’t even notice how numb her limbs are until this moment.

 

“Still trying to ignore me, Rey? It’s going to be much harder now when I’m right here in front of you.”

 

His voice is insincerely balanced. She can hear the subtle tones of deep annoyance under the main rhythm. He really seems to hate when she gives him the silent treatment. So of course she’s going to keep doing it.

 

They’ve been going along this path for so long that she knows how to get what she wants from him without saying a word. All she has to do is quiet her thoughts. Try to ignore the _ping ping ping_ of rising interest from his side of the bond as he watches her with far too much interest.

 

She tries to open herself up to the Force and let it pour into her. Waits for it to fill her up with its righteous ability to kick this punkass bitch’s butt right back into whatever dark and lonely hovel he crawled out of tonight.

 

Except… she can’t. There’s nothing there. She tries again, growing alarm sharpening her efforts, but all that it does is to draw her attention to the _other thing_ that’s keeping her blinded.

 

The silent treatment doesn’t last long, but it takes her a few sputtering efforts to get started.

 

“Oh..oh you dirty, duplicitous, two-faced, _son of a_ -”

 

“Rey.”

 

She feels his breath on her face as he sighs. A leather-clad finger presses against her lips and she snarls, glaring daggers that she knows he can see even through her blindfold. This is hardly the first time she’s cursed him out, but rarely has it ever been with so much heartfelt conviction.

 

“But I thought you liked my mother?” he teases, and this time she can _hear_ the smirk on his face.

 

He never calls her… he’s doing it to piss her off. He has to be. Taunting her even if it bothers him and what sort of petty, childish response is-

 

“Is there something wrong, Darling?”

 

He has the nerve to sound smug. Thumb dodging out of the limited range of her teeth as she gnashes them together at his use of her most-hated pet name.

 

“Did you put me in a fucking _Force Collar_ you despicable piece of work?”

 

The finger goes back to her lips. This time it’s joined by his palm that cradles her jaw and forcibly holds it closed like a muzzle.

 

And isn’t that just the most obnoxious thing ever? Enough to make her think ‘ _o_ _h fuck it’_. Whatever. She’s going for it.

 

Without a hint of warning, she slams her head forward as fast and hard as she can.

 

Her lack of possible momentum and his hand on her limits the effect, but she still feels a satisfying crunch as her forehead impacts into what she hopes is his obnoxiously large nose.

 

He makes a startled noise. Not quite a yelp of pain since he’s so bound and determined to keep up with his big macho darksider persona. But his grunt is enough to please her. She can even feel their bond give an annoyed twist in the back of her mind. It seems to get quite irritated whenever they hurt each other, which means it gets irritated a lot.

 

But that’s odd, too.

 

“Our Bond?” she asks, flexing her jaw. It’s slightly sore from where he’d been squeezing her too hard before he’d let go when she’d hit him. “It’s still there. So you didn’t-”

 

“You thought I was going to block it with the collar?” his voice sounds so incredulous. “I would never do that. Unlike you, I embrace the gift that fate has given us together.”

 

Oh. Right. _That._ She rolls her eyes despite the tension of the fabric tied over them.

 

Kylo and his ridiculous fucking obsession with their “gift”. Their connection has been, without a doubt, the very worst thing that ever has happened to Rey. And gods know that she’s had some crummy events in her life prior to all this. But he always acts like… like…

 

“You’re a fucking psycho, you know that, right?” Yeah. That’s it. That’s the term she was looking for. “You seem to think that just because the Force fucked up and linked us somehow that-”

 

The hand shoots back over her mouth again. This time the peppery scent of his blood tickles her nostrils. If she hadn’t fully broken his nose with her headbutt, she at least clipped him pretty good.

 

She sighs. Yanking her head to the side but he holds on and all her efforts do is give her mild whiplash.

 

“Rey?”

 

She grunts. It’s muffled. She waits for him to protest like he always does when she calls this _thing_ a mistake. Again, he surprises her.

 

“Shut up.”

 

Nothing more. No declarations or grim predictions for their future together. He almost sounds hurt, but what the hell did he expect? Kidnapping her and ruining her first kriffing night off that she’s had in forever.

 

Godsdamnit. She was supposed to be having fun. Misbehaving badly. And instead she has to deal with _this_.

 

For a few long and tense moments neither of them move. The silence that follows is as unnerving to Rey as it is welcome. Still, she reaches out with her mind again. Trying to predict where the volatile psychopath that she’s bonded to has his head at.

 

Maybe she can overcome the force collar if she tries hard enough? Master Luke said her level of abilities was extraordinary, so if she just… concentrates… focuses...

 

It almost works. But it doesn’t. She can sense him through the Bond but not with the Force and it makes her feel all weird and numb and phantom limb-y.

 

She gives up with a sigh. Slumping against whatever she’s tied up with. Kylo lets her go, then. She can hear him turn and walk away without saying another word.

 

The door hisses. The heavy sound of his footsteps fade. Then it slides shut and Rey is left to silence and her own machinations.

 

*

 

By the time Kylo comes back, several hours have gone by.

 

Or at least she thinks it’s been several hours. Her methodical Jedi training had told her that she should spend the time meditating so that her senses would be honed and ready for an opportunity to present itself.

 

But they’ve already established that she’s not very good at this whole Jedi thing. Instead of regrouping, she went through stages of sharp fury that slowly ebbed back down in the wake of her creeping discomfort. She’s still tied up, blindfolded, and her arms are somehow restrained over her head and it’s probably really not good for them to have restricted blood flow for so long.

 

“You’re angry.”

 

He ha been standing there for a while. Watching her squirm and no doubt getting some sort of depraved satisfaction from making her suffer.

 

And is she angry? Oh no. Livid is more accurate. Furious. Growling, even.

 

Rey can feel him move closer then. Hear the swish of his cloak and the subtle warmth of his body as he stands only slightly off of her.

 

“You’re pretty when you’re angry.”

 

Silence. The moment hangs between them as she takes in his comment.

 

“Did I tell you that I hate you?”

 

Her reply makes him smile. She can feel his smile through their bond. She can still shut down the connection between them, though, Force or no Force. At least temporarily. Which she does the second that she senses how pleased he is that she’s talking to him again.

 

“Not within the last hour, no.”

 

“Well, then I hate you.”

 

A gloved finger traces along her jaw. She snaps at it and it effortlessly dodges her teeth.

 

“Do you want to hear a joke?”

 

“ _Ohgoodgods_ , someone out there save me.”

 

“Hang in there, Rey.”

 

She opens and closes her mouth. No words. There are no words.

 

This… this _idiot…_

 

Well, okay, there’s that one.

 

Then she hears him turn on his heel as he leaves her alone again.

 

*

 

“Are you ready to be nice to me?”

 

She hates his voice. His stupid, smug, condescending voice. The one that’s asking her such an obnoxious and unnecessary question. Her back hurts, her neck hurts, her arms are so numb she wouldn’t be surprised if they’re starting to turn blue, and her eyelashes are smushed up at weird angles against the fabric of the blindfold. She’s feeling many things toward her bond-mate at the moment, but “nice” certainly isn’t one of them.

 

“Come closer and find out.”

 

It’s an obvious taunt. He pauses. Then she hears him take another step. Just the one, though. Not nearly close enough.

 

“A little more. C’mon.”

 

“Are you going to attack me again?”

 

“Absolutely.”

 

“Why?”

 

She scoffs. “Because you have it coming.”

 

His boots creak as his weight shifts from side to side. The sound is followed by an odd and hollow thud off somewhere to her right. He brought something with him, then?

 

“I don’t, Rey. I really don’t.”

 

Her sudden bark of laughter echoes throughout the room with a dull, muffled noise. So she not in an interrogation room, then? The echo didn’t sound tinny and cold enough to be in a room filled with metal parts.

 

“You’re mocking me.” And again, he sounds hurt. “Why? I don’t deserve that, either.”

 

She tries to squirm to get some relief in her aching joints. Hopes that if he can see how uncomfortable she is, he’ll present her that opportunity she was looking for.

 

“Are you going to let me go?” she asks.

 

“Of course not.”

 

“Then you definitely deserve it.”

 

He steps closer. She can start to feel the warmth radiating off him.

 

Then, quick as lighting, a hand lashes itself into her hair. Holding her head back as he closes the distance.

 

“I could have taken you to Snoke. _Then_ I would have done something to earn your constant abuse. But not now. Now all I ever wanted was for you to _stop ignoring me_.”

 

That’s… it? All of this was because she’s been blocking him ever since he… well, nevermind. But even by Kylo Ren standards, this is a exceptionally petty tantrum that he’s throwing.

 

“Well, you’ve got my attention now. Congratulations."

 

She purposely makes her voice as deadpan as possible, just to be extra bratty. Maybe sassing him right now isn’t the best idea, but she’s just so utterly fed up with dealing with this volatile lunatic. She’s already beaten him in every way, thank you. She shouldn’t even be here, let alone deal with his clinginess.

 

“That’s true,” he comments, and she feels him fumble with the tie to her blindfold, “you are my captive audience, after all.”

 

Oh good. Another joke. Now the whole evening has been saved.

 

Still, her eyes squeeze shut very tightly as she feels the material over them fall away. Fully expecting to be blinded by brilliant, painfully bright examination lights.

 

When she peeks, however, the room is extremely dark. Just one distant lamp that leaves Kylo’s face almost completely in shadow.

 

She can feel him watching her, but she can’t see it. Can’t gauge his expression in any way. Irrationally, she pushes out with the Force again. Then remembers that she can’t anymore.

 

“You’re afraid to use it, aren’t you?”

 

Her mind must be playing tricks on her, because his voice _sounds_ different now that she can sort of see him.

 

“Use what?”

 

“Our Bond.”

 

Use the bond? Um, no. Absolutely not. She hates that freaking thing almost as much as she hates him.

 

“Do you, Rey? Really hate me? Because, I think that if you did...” he steps closer, letting his voice trail off for effect. “If you did, you wouldn’t have been so upset with me the other day.”

 

Oh gods, _‘the other day’_. The day he sexually assaulted some misguided, down on her luck young girl and made her watch him do it.

 

Rey jerks her head, trying to free herself of the memory he’s drawing from her as much as she wants to get free of his hand so that she can headbutt him again.

 

All she achieves is pulling her own hair. So she changes strategies.

 

“I wouldn’t go around bragging about that, if I were you. Terrorizing a prostitute may be a crucial part of your social life, but-”

 

He shuts her mouth with his hand again. Cupping the whole lower half of her face in his palm and holding until she starts to get lightheaded from lack of oxygen. She squeezes her eyes shut, not wanting to look at him right then. To see his fascinated expression is as he watches her struggle to breathe.

 

Does he look like the emotionless Sith Lord he aspires to be? Sometimes she sees a lot of that in him, and sometimes it’s the ghost of his former self that stares back at her.

 

Kylo wouldn't kill, she knows that. But he easily might wait until she passes out again and then who knows what he’d do next?

 

Their bond twitches. Shimmering and pulling like a cloth being stretched too tight. It doesn’t like what he’s doing to her, but their close proximity is something new. It doesn’t know how to react as she uselessly tries to twist and turn to get away and he just keeps on touching her.

 

“Try it.”

 

It takes a second for his words to reach over pounding thumps of her heart trying to push blood into her head. He wants… He wants-

 

Oh fuck you, fuck you, _fuckyou_ K _ylo!_!! He’s trying to teach her! Make her learn how to use their fucking bond to get out of this.

 

She refuses. Absolutely and categorically. All those months spent ignoring their connection. Ignoring _him_. It can’t be for nothing. It won’t be.

 

So she screams against his hand instead. Forcing out the remaining oxygen from her lungs but there was so little left that all that comes out is a reverberating hum.

 

The last thing she sees before blacking out is him shaking his head at her. Expression so full of disappointment at her choices that for a flickering instant he almost looks like his uncle.

 

And that’s a disturbing enough thought that she welcomes the darkness filling her vision with open arms.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No attempts at a being a serious writer were made here today, but let’s not let that stop us when there’s fun to be had. No real plot for this fic, either, just a couple of scene ideas and an ending that I think will be pretty funny and appropriate. I originally planned on this being a lot darker and kinkier, but hey, gotta go where your muse takes you. 
> 
> Next chapter: whole lotta of groping and probably more bad jokes. How could Rey possibly resist? #heyitworkedonpadme


	2. Damsel, the Little Bunny, Hopping in the Dark

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Where Kylo unsuccessfully attempts to prove to Rey that he’s not just some monster by locking her in a dark room and not letting her out. Because chicks love that kind of stuff.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Time to be a really bad author and admit that I’m just kinda winging it with this story. Some of my stories like my desert AU are ones that I’ll spend a whole lot of time plotting and working out what happens when, but this fic is basically me writing whatever bounces into mind first. “Weird molestation hijinks in the dark? Yeah, sure why not?” ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯

What would Master Luke do?

 

That’s the question that Rey keeps asking herself as time slips past her unaccounted for. What in the Force-forsaken galaxy would her Master do in a situation like this?

 

Many things, doubtlessly. He’s kriffing _Luke Skywalker_. The legendary savior of the universe. Arguably, one of the most famous and important people to ever have lived. As his last and final apprentice, expectations are set very high for her. 

 

It’s a tough pill to swallow, but she somehow has to accept that she’s failing the standards miserably and at every milestone of the way. So just what would her legendary master do?

 

First things first, he wouldn’t even be in this situation. Not at all. Not get drunk, not get stupid, and definitely not get caught. By _him_ least of all.

 

And then... Then most assuredly Master Luke would not get tied up, taunted, then trapped in a pitch-dark cell. Or wherever she is, because she didn’t get a good enough look around when she had the opportunity earlier.

 

Rey’s time will come, though. As soon _as_ opportunity strikes  again, she’s going to take full advantage of it. Indeed. She will offer no quarter in her vengeance upon him for _everything_ that he has done.

 

Ironically, her list  of his crimes, as extensive as it is,  both begins and ends with him kidnapping her and  putting her in chains . Hmm… okay.  Rey thinks that she’s in the same room as when she woke up a few hours before, but he could have easily moved her and tied her up once again when she was unconscious. That’s kind of their special thing together, unfortunately for her.

 

Godsdamnit. That asshole. When she gets out, she going to kick  Kylo’s ass so kriffing hard. 

 

No, s eriously. She’s going to let him have it.  Her foot’s going to be sore by the time she’s done. Metaphorically speaking, mostly. She’s planning on using other body parts as well and that sounds really bad when she says it like that so nevermind.

 

Fuck. She’s really not very good at this, is she?

 

She thinks he’s smirking. She’s not going to take a peek through their bond and find out, but she feels like he probably is, and that grounds her back into reality and out of her head.

 

If there ever had been a moment that Rey’s hatred towards her bond-mate had reached a crescendo, it was now, when she had woken up in the exact same state she had fallen unconscious in. Tied up, suspended, with her back aching and her arms having gone all the way around the orbit of discomfort from numb to “in total abject agony”.

 

Pain isn’t real. It’s only a temporary state of mind or some unhelpful Jedi bullshit like that. But what she has to focus on now is getting out. 

 

It’s not going to be easy. He’s done everything on purpose. Blindfolded no more, but wherever she is now is in pitch darkness. In space, somewhere, judging by the subtle engine noises reverberating through metal. But no bips or beeps or lighting from any source anywhere.

 

Rey wriggles. Painfully. Strung up the way that she is, she can’t move very much.

 

But she can a small amount, if she really forces it. Her feet aren’t bound, so she kicks in a sweep around her. Not to be a destructive little shit having a tantrum, but for the sake of placement.

 

Her foot touches a surface. A low table? No, it’s light enough to move with she skims against it. 

 

A chair, then. And she’s pushing it away from her with her probing movements instead of bringing it closer. If she could drag it so that she could stand on it, then she could probably get the leverage needed to get her hands free of the bonds above her head. Then the epic asskicking could commence.

 

It’s a hard if not impossible task to do while blind, though. The chair is placed right at the edge of her range, meaning that more often then not the tip of her toe flubs on it, sending it millimeter by millimeter further away from her. If she only had the Force...

 

Fuck you, Kylo. Seriously, fuck you so fucking hard.

 

And, of course, when the chair tips over she loses her remaining threads of temper at a speed that’s faster than fast.

 

“I hate you!” she screams, “do you fucking hear me? I hate you so much for this!” 

 

Her voice rings through the room. It sounds more metallic and hollow than it had before. The room, not her voice. Though maybe that too.

 

A little tug on their bond and her days of hating him come to head once again. He had heard her. Or felt her, more likely. And now he’s checking in on her. Sending a pulse through their connection to make sure that she’s unharmed. Unharmed in body, at least. Mentally he must be sure of her state and know that it’s all his fault.

 

And yet, he’s still concerned about her wellbeing. It makes her teeth itch. The sheer _nerve_ of that man.

 

With little else to do, she screams again. This time it’s just an inarticulate yell, but she sends as much of her anger into the cosmos as she can. Sends the same acidic bite of rage that she’s had to choke on from him through their bond more than once. If he wants to feel her, then he can feel _that_ , too. Even without the aid of the Force, she still has a few ways to lash out at him. 

 

It makes him falter. She can see him in her mind for a second. The hallway that he’s in appears to tremble through his eyes as he staggers. Serves him right, that fu-

 

Oops. This much anger and relishing of his unease certainly isn’t the Jedi way. Her Master certainly wouldn’t do that. He _never_ had given in to his anger, right?  That’s what made him the Legendary Luke Skywalker that he is.

 

She’d actually asked him that, once.  If he’d ever lost control and just  _reacted?_ Legendary Luke had been… evasive  with his answer . Had tried to change the subject and, when she pressed, silenced her with  a lengthy task list of everything that she needed to get done before nightfall. For the sake of her training,  of course . It seemed rather petty of him, in hindsight, so maybe that answered her question after all.

 

R ey waits for something to happen after her latest outburst.

 

N othing. Silence. And darkness. She’d expected a t least a taunt from Kylo. 

 

She groans. Closing her eyes and trying to will her collar off. Channel her suppressed energy into melting the hated thing into nonexistence.

 

It doesn’t work. That sucks.

 

Next, Rey tries to wriggle her way free even though she knows that’s impossible. 

 

She can’t move her fingers. It pisses her off even more. But, no, she can’t just thrash and kick until she exhausts herself of her anger. And all her movements do is jerk her shoulders which are locked rigidly in the upright position next to her ears.

 

It hurts. She’s angry. And, if she thought that she could get away with it, she’d probably cry out of sheer, pure frustration.

 

Click?

 

Yes, _click_. The lights blast on. And she yelps. 

 

It’s so bright that it burns her eyes even through her lids. Irrationally, it almost makes her miss her blindfold.

 

She wants to demand that he _turn that_ off but she won’t. Too much acknowledging of his vile presence. Instead, she scrunches her face up like the light’s still hurting her even if she’s already adjusting to it and she’s really only trying to make up for how threadbare her emotions are being pulled.

 

Kylo halfway complies with her unspoken demand. Dimming it to an acceptable level but not completely off like she wanted. Always with the power struggles. He just had to be a little shit like that. Must have been great for his parents dealing with Baby Ben and everything being a fucking war of wills between reasonable behavior and the whims of a spoiled brat.

 

“That’s not a very nice thing to say.”

 

He’s in her head again, just to prove that he can do that and she can’t any more. And she refuses to look at him even if she knows that’s what he wants from her. 

 

At least he has his kriffing helmet off. She can hear that through the natural tones of his voice.

 

“Rey.”

 

Her name rolls off in a wistful sigh. She hates him for a lot of things, but she _really_ hates him for that. 

 

And, nope. Still going to ignore him. It’s so petty of her, but fuck it. She can feel his resentment simmering, but he’s trying to hide it from her. Trying not to act like the evil brat she knows so well.

 

He stands right in front of her, then. Waiting. 

 

She gives him nothing.

 

_ Hmmm… _

 

He thinks it through their bond. Deliberately letting her know that he’s pondering his next action against her.

 

“Comfortable?”

 

She narrows her eyes. Glares at a corner of the near-empty room. Wherever she is isn’t a cell, not quite. It looks more like a-

 

“It’s not a prison,” he interrupts. “I wouldn’t do that to you unless you make me.” 

 

She wrinkles her nose at the implied threat. _Behave or else, Desert Rat_. 

 

Oh, go to hell, Kylo. How about that?

 

A huff. Amusement at her indignation rolls over from his side. 

 

“So where am I? Where have you dragged me to?”

 

He cocks his head. She really doesn’t like the way he’s looking at her right now. It makes her feel so exposed and vulnerable despite the cloak of anger she keeps trying to protectively wrap herself in.

 

“A place that’s completely secured,” he answers after a few breaths. “You wouldn’t be able to escape from here. You couldn’t, even if you didn’t have t _his_.”

 

He  emphasizes the last word with a brush of his hand against her collar. When she doesn’t respond, he leaves his hand around her neck until the extended contact and his rapt attention  on her face  becomes too much for her to stand.

 

“Kylo,” she growls, finally making herself look at him. 

 

His mouth twitches, but at least he doesn’t smile. She doesn’t know what she’d do if he smiled.

 

“Are you comfortable?” he repeats when she looks away again.

 

She wants to scream things. Abuses, mostly, though vocalizing her rising misery appeals as well. But she chokes it all down into stoic, Jedi-like silence. The effort to keep everything bottled inside makes her throat constrict and she’s afraid to breathe or she might abruptly crack.

 

Kylo notices her struggle. Of course he does. He’s right there and now there’s no place left for her to hide.

 

She sniffs. Hopes it sounds indignant and not fragile.

 

His hand is still on her neck and his thumb grazes her cheek. 

 

“Oh.”

 

That syllable is all he says. 

 

Irrationally, she feels like she’s about to burst into tears. Her waterline itches and she can feel her steadily rolling anger begin to drift into something else at his close proximity. The memory of what he did with the _girl_ not so long ago still stings her, and now there’s all of the rest of this to deal with. 

 

And Kylo must know everything that she’s thinking. There’s a subtle shift between them, and she can actually feel him pull back a little, both mentally and physically. He doesn’t let go of her, though. Rather, he loosens his grip and lightly pats her skin with the flat of his thumb.

 

“I’ve gone too far. I’m sorry.”

 

He  just  apologized. Rey blinks.  Neither of them move. She can hardly breathe, and the constriction in her chest is amplifying every warring emotion all the more.

 

She wants him to untie her. But she’s not going to say it and she knows he won’t until she asks. Another fucking power trip of his. 

 

No. She’s not going to ask, then. She’s going to demand. That’s totally different. Demands are an essential part of hostile negotiations. 

 

His mouth twitches again. Amused at her choice of thoughts.

 

“Kylo,” she pauses to clear her throat. He waits, as expectant and eager as a puppy hoping for a treat. 

 

“You want me to let you go?” he offers. Trying to be oh-so-helpful. It’s obnoxious enough that she locates her faded resolve quickly.

 

“You _will_ let me go.” 

 

H e smiles then. Fleetingly, but she still saw it.

 

_You fucking ba-_

 

_ Son of a-  _

 

_Just fuck you,_ _okay?_

 

“That’s an order, Kylo.  You will let me go. _Right_ _n_ _ow_.”

 

“You know I won’t do that.”

 

He crouches again, making her stare down at the top of his head. It’s so reminiscent that he absolutely has to be doing it on purpose. Except this time it’s much more uncomfortable because she’s strung up high and that brings him right in line with her stomach.

 

The gentle sigh rustles against the fabric of her shirt. Then he reaches out and touches her again. Cradling her waist and she hisses at him through their bond in an empty warning.

 

Light as a feather. The feeling between them. He likes that, too, she realizes. Not the touching her part, though probably that as well, but that he’s coaxing her into reluctantly using their bond.

 

Fuck you, Kylo. _Fuckyoufuckyoufuckyou_.

 

“I didn’t quite catch that. Was that a ‘please’ at the end? Something that you wanted from me?”

 

His phrasing does not go unnoticed. She tries to kick him in the chin and he catches the move effortlessly. Holding on to one of her knees while the other hand squeezes her hip.

 

“Let go of me or let me down.” Obnoxiously squeaky. She hates the way her voice sounds at that moment.

 

He tips his head up, staring at her hands. Rey has to crane her neck to see how she’s tied to the ceiling. Winces. Well, at least her hands aren’t turning blue, but even if she had managed to drag the chair under her, she wouldn’t-

 

“I wasn’t going to make it that easy, Rey. And you’ll be fine like this for a while.”

 

“Voice of experience?”

 

She snaps it, glaring down at him. The look in his eyes answers her and she feels her next retort disappear from her tongue.

 

“Something like that.”

 

They fall into a staring match, neither one willing to break the eye contact first. Rey feeling like she’s spinning. Trying to keep every emotion inside her and for the most part succeeding. Kylo stares up at her as if he’s waiting for something. Waiting for her to come to some grand revelation or at least beg and plead for him to untie her.

 

She won’t do anything of the sort. He sighs, shoulders slumping, then gives in and looks away first. Lets go and rolls back onto his heels, standing up with a creak of leather and towering over her again.

 

“Lights on or off?” he asks. 

 

He’s leaving. Good. She’s so sick of him.

 

“I don’t care.”

 

He frowns. Then nods.

 

“Off, then.”

 

He turns and leaves, pausing at the door to wave his hand in front of the switch. The door locks itself with a series of loud click a second after the lights inside turn off.

 

Rey sighs. That was stupid of her to be so petty. Master Luke really would be so disappointed.

 

*

 

Kylo doesn’t stay away for long.

 

By the time Rey had recovered her emotions enough to start to be truly bothered by how much pain she was still in, he had already returned. Watched, close and crouched, as she had shifted and fought down the urge to whimper in misery.

 

Her shoulders hurt. Goddamnit. And she was so sick of this. So sick of _him_. All she wanted was for this to never have happened. All she wanted was to be back home, struggling to sleep despite the ocean chill in the air and be laying down on her hard, uncomfortable palette on…

 

_No._ He was leading her on. Following her trail of thoughts and gently nudging them to reveal what he wanted.

 

“Oh nice try, asshole, but I’m not telling you where Master Luke is.”

 

She had recovered her emotions enough to curse at him. That’s good. 

 

He huffs. She turns her head so she doesn’t have to look at him. It’s a largely empty gesture in the once-again pitch black room, but she hadn’t realized how close he really was until then.

 

“I’ll find out one way or another. You’re just delaying the inevitable.”

 

He might be right. But Rey doesn’t really care. Especially not now.

 

“Maybe, but you won’t find it out from me.”

 

“We’ll see.”

 

Rey rolls her eyes.  This i s every bit  as symbolic , and she feels the air stir around her as he stands up.

 

Another sound and shift.  His glove slides  a gainst her cheek and gently tries to pull her face away from the side where she had it turned.

 

She resists, feeling thoroughly and completely annoyed that he has no problems seeing her and she’s blind without the Force.

 

“It’s hard for you, isn’t it?”

 

Rey tries to yank her chin out of his hand. His turn to resist.  That question literally could mean any fucking thing ever, and if he’s not going to elaborate th en -

 

“The Force,” he elaborates. “It’s hard for you to not have it. Like cutting off a limb and having to learn to adapt to life without it.”

 

That’s… a very specific example. Rey frowns in the darkness and he takes her moment of distraction to yank her head to where he had wanted it to be.

 

“And just how would you know that?” she snaps, muffled slightly by his hand. She’s still curious about what he’d said before.

 

“How do you think I could know?” he asks, leaning closer.

 

She can feel his breath against her lips. It actually smells nice. Minty,  even. Like he’d just brushed his teeth in high hopes before coming back here . But she’s not going to get off onto any sort of tangents like  _that_ when he’s  standing right in front of her.

 

Distracted as she is, his words take a few moments to sink in.

 

“You’ve had your powers suppressed?”

 

“Of course I have.”

 

She doesn’t know why that surprises her as much as it does. Tries to picture Kylo wearing a repression collar but she doesn’t even know what they actually looks like, including the one currently around her neck.

 

So many questions.

 

“Why?” she asks, eventually.

 

He makes a strange little sound through his nose. It tickles her eyelashes and she turns her head slightly in his grasp. She realizes that her question could be interpreted in two different ways.

 

“Was it on purpose? Or...” 

 

Or did something happen to you? Did the great, big bad Kylo Ren ever get kidnapped and tormented also, and now he’s just paying it forward for misguided revenge?

 

He shakes his head.

 

“It was part of my training. Learning to overcome the collar’s effects as well as adapt to not having one of my senses. It’s an essential skill, and one that you should have been taught as well.”

 

Right. _Should have_. His real meaning is obvious.

 

She wants to defend her Master from the subtext that he wasn’t doing enough for her. It hadn’t been all that long since she’d first started with him. He simply hadn’t had time to teach her everything she needed to know yet.

 

Would it have been different if she’d lost that day in the snow? If she hadn’t defeated Kylo, but rather the other way around? Would he have slain her right then and there like she’d been tempted to do to him, or would he have taken her back to his lair and forced darkness upon her?

 

Where would her life have been like now, if things had gone so differently?

 

“Rey?”

 

Kylo had been watching her closely that she had forgotten he was still holding on to her until a second hand joins the contact with her body. This time it lands on her shoulder and massages the aching muscles where the joint meets her neck.

 

Affection. 

 

He had been following her thoughts and was trying to show her affection. 

 

Yes, Rey, he would have. He thinks that he would have killed her in the snow. That’s what he’s apologizing for. He would have done it and then he would have felt really terribly about it.

 

Well, okay then. So glad they got that debate out of the way.

 

She makes a non-committal noise. Wants to shrug him off but the heat from his gloved hand is just the tiniest bit soothing against her and she’s in so much discomfort that she’ll take even the smallest amount of relief.

 

“Would you like me to let you down?”

 

Silence . Again, so many questions.

 

It’s a trick. Obviously. Some sort of power play or maybe he’s simply bored with fondling her in the dark while she’s tied up.

 

“ _Fondling_? I’m pretty sure I’m just touching you, Rey. And I don’t want you to be in pain. I never did.”

 

She glares at where she thinks his face is. Feels their bond smile and a twist of annoyance builds in her at his stray thought on how  _cute_ she looks like that.

 

When she doesn’t answer, he lets go. Rey has to dig deep to hide her disappointment. This is why you can’t have hope, kids, because it sucks much worse when it’s taken away from you.

 

Rather than walking away, he steps behind her. Cups under the triceps area of both her arms in his hands and she jumps a little.

 

“Ticklish?”

 

“Oh go to hell.”

 

Their bond smiles again. The connection soft as he runs his hands up her arms very slowly, feeling each bump of bone and swell of muscle along his way as he goes. It would be relaxing if her hands weren’t so numb that she could barely feel them.

 

But then  _clink-clink_ and her body suddenly has slack ness in it.

 

Too much, perhaps, because she half-collapses in his waiting hands. Her own arms, however, she just can’t seem to lower. Her shoulders allow a slight movement but after being suspended for so long they stay practically locked in place.

 

Kylo guides her to her knees and takes her wrists in his hands, pulling down slightly. She hisses.  _Oh kriff_ _that hurts_ _…_

 

“Shhh,” he soothes, helping her adjust in tiny increments. Gently get her used to the new position he’s put her in and showing her how to ease further into it.

 

Okay, just hold on a minute. This whole thing is  starting to sound much too sexual. 

 

Kylo laughs under his breath, effortlessly following her thoughts.

 

“Don’t worry,” he murmurs, and his voice sounds uncharacteristically low and husky. “I’ve got you now. Relax and let me take care of everything.”

 

Wince. Part from pain and part from his awful, hackneyed attempts at being flirty.

 

But she lets him help her. Massage blood and life back into her limbs. Her arms go from numb and stiff to sore and nearly excruciatingly prickly as circulation returns. 

 

When she can flop them down by her sides, she sinks down to sit on the floor. Glares sullenly ahead into the black space as her bond-mate tuts over her. Rubs her shoulders and neck. Strokes her hair out of her face and swirls it back and away, tucking the bits by her face to behind her ears.

 

She doesn’t want him to be nice like this. He’s tortured her, and now he’s caring for her. It’s not right. Their bond loves it, though. So content and blissed at his doting touches.

 

Her eyes prickle again. Burning until she has to close them. The first tract of moisture that leaks out is caught by smooth leather.

 

And at least the darkness lets her hide from herself if not from him. Alright, Rey. It’s okay to cry now. But just a little bit. Then get over it and get yourself together and back into action.

 

‘Are you going to let me go now?” she asks, voice reed thin. The finger swipes again, catching the matching drop on her other cheek.

 

“Of course not.”

 

Right. Of course not. She’s so glad she doesn’t have to look at him. The mercy of small favors. 

 

Mercy. 

 

Something else that she absolutely doesn’t want from him. Not now, after that other girl. And the other things, too. The other transgressions. But ever since _that_ happened, it’s been burning a hole in her soul. Something to keep her up at night for all the wrong reasons.

 

How could he do that to her? So hypocritical. How could he be such a hypocrite?

 

Now the tears are pooling up against his hand. Wetting her cheek in a soggy crescent from where his palm is flush against her skin.

 

He has to know what she’s thinking. She can feel him in her head which can only mean that  _he_ can feel just how much…

 

“Go away.”

 

She says it against his palm, but she knows that he heard her.

 

He’s surprised. Their bond lifts, rising like a balloon to the ceiling. He pulls back from her in every way. Leaves her sitting there in the absolutely darkness as he stand up and the echoes of his footfall sound so loud in the empty room.

 

When he opens the door he’s silhouetted by light. It’s just too fucking symbolic and she squeezes her eyes shut.

 

“You can’t take it off.” His parting shot. She’d been yanking at her collar with her hand without even realizing that she was doing it.

 

“I know. But I’m going to try anyhow.”

 

A pause. She can detect his shadow from even behind her lids.

 

Then he closes the door without another word, leaving her in darkness and she know that he won’t come back again for a while. But that buys her time. A few hours or more to collect herself back into a Jedi-like stoicism and plan her escape.

 

Suddenly, the urge to get away from him overrules the desire for vengeance, but that too will change. She just needs a few minutes to herself first.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter: 
> 
> Well, Rey’s strategy of hurling profanity and verbal abuse at Kylo until he lets her go didn’t work. And quite possibly just turned him on. Damnit. But now that she’s got that off her chest, it’s time to start on an escape plan. And surely Kylo can’t be working on any sort of nefarious scheme of his own, right?


	3. Sartre Would Be Proud

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Just like the play except, this time, instead of those three happy people it’s Rey, Kylo, and Kylo’s massive, raging ego.

When Rey had finished crying herself hoarse, she decided that it was time for her to come up with a new strategy. She couldn’t escape without the Force. She couldn’t get the Force back until Kylo allowed it to her.

 

No. That second part was bullshit. She didn’t need _him_ for anything. For her whole life she had always been dependent strictly on herself and herself alone. Being bonded to the Galaxy’s biggest fuckwad only made that fact more true rather than the opposite.

 

What she needed was a plan. Before her plan, she needed to pull herself together. Okay, she had her little moment, shit happens. Now it’s time to use her training and look deep into herself for the reserves that she knows are there, are always there, but she’s lost sight of.

 

Think, Rey. You can figure this out. You’re a smart girl. Smarter than _him_ , that’s for sure.

 

Alright… so what exactly was the point of shrouding her in darkness? Keeping her locked here without even the barest of lights now surely had to be a deliberate part of his grand scheme. He hadn’t done that at all during their first encounter like this.

 

Was the action strictly metaphorical? Kylo had more than just a passing flair for the theatrics. Perhaps it was his misguided notion that, if he keeps her literally in the dark for long enough, she’ll start to embrace it?

 

Or was he trying to make her dependent on him? By chaining her up in the pitch blackness of her cell with nothing but his own sporadic and unpredictable presence to keep her company? Only his random visitations to look forward to break up the monotony of however many hours (or was it longer? Days, even?) that she had been kept imprisoned in here?

 

Well, if _that_ was Kylo’s Grand Plan, he can go suck an egg.

 

Rey is no stranger to darkness. The tainted hue of her thoughts as she grew up in a tiny metal shell where lights were a luxury she cold rarely afford. Rey’s got handling darkness down to a science.

 

And what about solitude?

 

That one is where it gets trickier. Solitude had been her lifelong burden, and she’d almost thought that she’d become sufficiently numbed to it. Until she suddenly had too little of peace and privacy. Like the click of a light, her world had all at once become filled was people people _people_ everywhere around her. It was as oppressive as it was welcome.

 

And yes, those constant presences certainly included _him_.

 

Now she’s never alone anymore. Even at the private moments that she’s so desperate to have only to herself. When she doesn’t want another soul even guessing what she’s doing, let alone watching and skinriding along with her for the experience. Yet another thing he’s taken from her, in addition to her freedom.

 

Ah, but that’s also where he messed up. Fucked up, really. That’s the word she should use. Forcing her to accept his constant misuse of their situation was actually the point where he fucked up big time.

 

Why? Because, before the “Thing” between them existed (and she still hates to refer to it as anything more intimate than that), but before it existed she was drifting aimlessly. Letting others make key decisions for her and simply going along with the flow of the universe.

 

In a way, it was a _very_ Jedi-like existence. But now? Now Kylo has inadvertently given her a purpose in life. And it’s not something that he’s going to like one bit.

 

*

 

Rey’s eyes open to that thought.

 

Maybe opening them serves no purpose, given the constant blackness of her new environment, but they open nonetheless and her gaze razes upwards almost as if the proverbial light bulb of good ideas had appeared in that spot.

 

She’d been a good girl. Calmed herself down and was even doing that most tedious of tedious tasks called ‘meditating’. Master Luke would be proud. She needed that. Desperately needed to do something to bring his pride in her back up to Notch One.

 

And the best part was that, unlike most of her meditation sessions, this one had actually _accomplished_ something. Her quiet and deep self introspection had flowed naturally through her mind. Starting from a wellspring of acceptance to her flaws and rolling down into a sort of comprehension about herself, her situation, and finally bringing her to an understanding about the man responsible for all of it.

 

Yes, she had found her purpose, and now she has found her resolve.

 

Rey is going to escape. It’s as simple as that. It’s a guarantee now. If her mind can believe it, she can achieve it. Manifest her own destiny. Or something like that.

 

Kylo is also coming closer. Perfect timing. Whether he felt her determination or simply was bored and decided to annoy her again, either way it doesn’t matter. Their tether vibrates with his encroaching presence and it’s not as unpleasant of a feeling as she wishes it was. So much stronger yet calmer now that they’re no longer galaxies apart.

 

She has less than a minute.

 

That’s what their Thing is telling her. Giving her a countdown to when she has to throw her plan into action. It’s not much time, obviously, but for a true Jedi 55 seconds and counting is a lifetime to perfect her escape.

 

She’s worked her hands free of her restraints hours ago. Or was it minutes or days or however long she’s really been here? Regardless, while she may not have the Force, she has the second best thing firmly rooted on her side: fate. She wills her fate to become her successful escape.

 

45 seconds. And since she wills it, so it will be. Fate shall set her free.

 

35 seconds. She can hear him approach now as much as she can feel his presence. It must be credited to that ridiculously heavy outfit he wears that makes him _thunk_ so much with each step.

 

22 seconds. Okay, okay. Get yourself ready, girl. It’s going to be fate and the element of surprise. Kylo is calm. Unsuspecting. That’s ideal, since the odds are so thoroughly stacked against her and she’s only got 15 seconds left and he’s already punching into the keypad on the lock on her door.

 

She’s only got one plan and it’s not exactly a good one, but she wills it to work. Pictures it in her head and it’s going to be executed flawlessly.

 

8 seconds.

 

She holds her breath.

 

The door opens. He steps inside.

 

“L-” is the first syllable of his ‘ _lights on’_ command, and it’s as far along as he gets before she lunges forward and knees him right between his legs.

 

And _oh_ if she didn’t do it much harder than just to knee him. She’d leaped forward out of the shadows of her hiding spot and dragged his shoulders down while bringing her knee up majorette-style. The added momentum of her surge upward not only knocked him nearly off of his feet, but also sent the tray of food that he’d brought for her spiraling through the air into the unknown darkness.

 

_Don’t waste food, young child._

 

Oh shut the fuck up, Luke. And Young Rey. Now is not the time for either of your practical, level-headed advice.

 

Kylo admits a fabulous, strangled seagull sort of noise. It’s enhanced by the vocoder in his mask in ways that are just indescribable.

 

Then he collapses down onto one knee, thoroughly hunched over, and she shoves him out of her way as she bounds past him and to her freedom.

 

Eight dashing steps away and she spins on her heel in a move that’s almost jaunty with exuberance. She’s not a pure and virtuous Jedi quite yet, so there’s one thing left. She can spare the second for a last and final barb at him.

 

“Good luck screwing another hooker now, asshole!” she shouts. Then turns and runs while he’s still trying to pull himself back up.

 

It was an elegant, simplistic, and perfect retort. She’s proud of it and running. Running hell for leather down a brightly lit hallway as she feels her bondmate claw his way back up to standing and begin his pursuit.

 

*

 

Yes, that had been her plan in its entirety.

 

Knee. Nuts. Freedom.

 

Just those three elements and nothing more.

 

Maybe the sheer simplicity of it would work. Simplicity, fate, and surprise. It was worth a shot, right? A shot to the nuts, at least. And damned if that noise he’d made hadn’t sounded blissful to her ears.

 

Their bond hops like a seismic needle as she rounds the corner and out of his line of sight. Shock from _it_ , shock and anger from him. She doesn’t hear him call out after her, even if she knows that he’s right behind her. Like he always is.

 

*

 

And no, her plan didn’t actually work. Just for the record. But she’d gotten much further away than she had (honestly) expected to.

 

Her pace was breakneck and surprisingly precise given that she had no idea where she was going. A long, bright, and utilitarian hallway. Countless side doors but they were probably locked and she couldn’t waste time checking what was inside. What she needs is a hangar, and those are always well-marked and in either the lower or upper sections of a starship.

 

Which is what she thinks she’s on because this place, wherever it is, is too noisy to be planet side and too vast to be a smaller vessel.

 

She sees a staircase. And an elevator. No time to waste for the second choice so she takes the first three steps at a time.

 

And promptly gets tackled before her feet touch the top landing.

 

Kylo grabs her and she blindly kicks backwards, sending them both off balance and tumbling right back down the steps in an awkward entanglement of limbs. It’s almost a pity it wasn’t one of those fancy spiral staircases because that might have given enough of an impact. And offered a hilariously cartoonish spectacle for anyone who happened to be watching.

 

Instead, her shadow clings to her like never before. Wrapping his arms so tight around her that, when the air gets knocked out of her lungs on impact, she has no chance to catch it again. It saves her from the worst of it, though, and he keeps on holding her when they hit the bottom, dragging her up off her feet before she can kick herself away. She claws at his eyes and he catches it, wrapping one hand around her wrists while the other smothers her, sealing off both her mouth and nose from taking a breath.

 

That’s kind of his thing, isn’t it? Suffocating her? Anything to calm her down, if need be.

 

_You’ve figured it out_.

 

Even the voice in her head sounds strained. Did she really hit him _that_ hard before?

 

The hand tightens, pinching her nose between thumb and forefinger as she tries to buck and twist and kick away from him. She starts to grow limp but bites down hard nevertheless. Predictably it gets caught in the leather of his gloves and doesn’t buy her much freedom.

 

_I hate you so much. You’re a monster._

 

He deserves far more colorful threats than that and she certainly has them. But it’s worthwhile breaking her vow to herself and using the _Thing_ to insult him just to be rewarded by his somewhat offended and hurt huff of breath.

 

_Sleep._

 

Maybe if she wasn’t half starved for oxygen she could have fought his command. She feels like maybe she could have. But as it is, her eyes immediately slide shut, saving them both from the effort of her struggles as she quickly falls into numb darkness right there in his arms.

 

*

 

 

 

 

 

Rey dreams.

 

It’s odd for her to dream. Normally she doesn’t. Maybe it’s something that she learned as a child, or maybe she simply doesn’t usually remember.

 

Which makes it even more strange that she’s dreaming while under a Force Sleep. _That_ she’s not supposed to remember at all, no matter what.

 

The dream is slow and muddled. A hazy, murky blend of incoherently random thoughts and bits and pieces of what might actually be happening to her in real life. She imagines Kylo carrying her back. In her mind’s eye he’s returned to the bridal carry that she remembers from him best. His signature move and it’s a sweeping, almost romantic gesture that somehow seems fitting despite all the recent hateful vitriol and testicular assaults between them.

 

And her dream ebbs and flows from there. Intertwining with reality and fiction. She feels herself being laid down but this time it’s on something much softer than either an interrogation chair or the utilitarian table he’d more recently chained her to.

 

A soft hand cradles her dream face. The familiar smell of leather running along her lower lip and leaving her itching to know whether this is real or not.

 

Would Kylo really touch her so sweet and gently after what had just happened? She almost thinks that he would. But she also almost _wants_ him to, and therein lies the dilemma. She’s so very tired of fighting him, fighting against their connection. It would only be the tiniest of leaps for her mind to give her a little wish fulfillment.

 

It isn’t easy. Denying and fighting and struggling. No one ever said it was going to be easy.

 

But the hand stays where it is instead of roving lower. C’mon Kylo, now is your chance, go explore.

 

Okay, now _that…_ that was definitely part of her dream. Because, while she was fighting with the angels and devils that inhabit her shoulders, the phantom hand lingers on. Running along one cheek before disappearing, only to return again momentarily. His touch is smooth and warm and there’s no more leather between them as he catches her chin and tips it up.

 

Rey hold her breath. She can feel herself drifting, starting to loose whatever awareness (or obliviousness) that she’s been grasping for.

 

A little, gentle _ping_ of pressure pops into her mind. Fumbling as she is, it takes her a second to remember about their Bond. It’s calling to her. Almost humming and trying to pull her in.

 

Well, if this is a dream, then he never has to know, right?

 

She’s been curious. Tempted by it. And if this isn’t real, then what harm could a tiny little peak behind the iron curtains she’s put up really do?

 

So she opens herself up to it carefully. It’s like looking at the sun; one quick glance and then you have to look away at a shadow for a moment to rebalance your vision.

 

Yes, it’s exactly like that, in fact. A featherlight and blink of an eye quick is how she touches their bond for the first time. She’s looked at it before, of course. Studied from very afar and tried to understand it, but only just enough so that she’d know how to block it. Maybe someday she could stop it completely. But this is the first time she’s ever actually truly made contact with their connection.

 

It’s surprisingly peaceful. Vastly unlikely given the emotional states emanating from both sides of it, but there it is. Like a warm current in the water that her head’s surrounded by. She’d expected it to be like him: messy and unruly and fractured. Instead it’s… comforting.

 

How obnoxious. It’s not supposed to be pleasant. That the Thing even exists at all is obscene, and to add _this_ on top of it?

 

No.

 

No, no, no. She’s looked at the sun for too long. So she pulls back. As far back as she can and, once again, she has absolutely no idea how much time has passed.

 

She severs access to her mind. Only in her dreamstate can she do that now. If this was really happening he would have no trouble overpowering her. Then she lets her head fall back. The phantom hand that had been cradling her face doesn’t follows. It lets go of her chin and the fingertips lazily drift down to rest along her neck.

 

Yes. This part’s definitely her dream. Confirmed. Because, when Kylo fantasies about her, he’s usually choking her. Wrapping his enormous hands around her neck and slowly squeezing her into limp submissiveness. It’s kind of his number one fetish, or so she’s learned from every time hes dragged her down with him into the depraved depths of his mind and idle hands.

 

If he were really fondling her now, he wouldn’t be able to resist. Not like this, when all she imagines him doing is ghosting his fingertips over her collarbone.

 

And now their bond is silent. That’s the strangest part. It’s like it’s holding its breath right along with her. It makes her curious to open her eyes, but also more curious to see what happens if she doesn’t.

 

But it’s time to wake up. This has gone on for long enough. Time to wake up and face a reality far less pleasant than the one her mind had concocted.

 

With a deep, heartfelt sigh, she pushes back up to the surface.

 

*

 

Rey’s eyes snap open.

 

It’s pitch black again. She’s back in her dark little room, chained up and definitely not on the nice, soft bed she’d imaged that she was. At least he doesn’t have her strung up anymore. She’s tied by her wrists and ankles to something very solid and wooden. The table, probably.

 

And there’s no Kylo. No soft caresses or kind touches. Just her by herself, left alone and wondering why now of all times that she’d remember her dreams.

 

And is it wrong that she feels a little disappointed to find herself like this? She should be upset about being re(re-re-)captured. She shouldn’t be bothered in the slightest that, apparently, he truly had just dumped her back in her cell and stomped off.

 

She wanted to be left alone, and now she has it. Sometimes getting exactly what you want isn’t enough. And the lovely warmth from him and their bond had really been all in her head.

 

No. She’s not upset about that. She’s upset that her plan (her beautiful, masterful plan) didn’t work.

 

That sucks, but she can’t let it get her down. Regroup. Recover. And figure out how to get the hell away from here.

 

*

 

Kylo stays far away from her.

 

She had expected him to come to her almost immediately after she’d awoken. Come to gloat or entice or maybe even oddly apologize again. She had prepared a lengthy series of rebuttals for every possible way their inevitable conversation could go.

 

And then he leaves and doesn’t come back. Silent and stoic and it’s so irrationally out of character for him. _He_ dragged her here, not the other way round, so why the cold shoulder now?

 

Okay, maybe he was still sore about her getting the knee-up on him. He may just need to pout or sit on a bag of frozen peas and get all that negativity out of his system.

 

But then as what feels like hours and hours slip by in numb, blackness and silence, surely he would get over his little injury and come back to torment her, right?

 

Nothing. She has no idea how long she’s been sitting there in the darkness. She’s very uncomfortable and that’s his fault, too. He put her here. Locked her in her miserable cage where it’s cold, she kind of needs to pee, and her stomach keeps rumbling.

 

Shouldn’t have wasted that food, little girl. Yeah, well, she had other priorities on her mind at the time. And he _could_ have left her with something when he’d dumped her back in here. That would just be good manners.

 

So, to top everything else off, her Bondmate’s a shit host, too. The least he could do is… give her anything. C’mon, _anything_. She’s bored senseless and starting to go a bit batty from all the nothingness.

 

Alright, Rey, calm down. No sense in getting worked up like this.

 

What would Luke do? He’d meditate. Of course. He’d calm himself. And then, with a steady mind, he’d tap into his limitless connection with the Force and override this fucking collar around her neck.

 

She takes a deep breath. It’s safe for her in the darkness. She feels very safe and calm. You don’t have to be afraid of the dark if you’re the scariest thing in it.

 

Er, no. That’s not actually calming. Though it is a nice motivational phrase. She mentally shelves it under ‘badass things to say later’ and tries again.

 

_Breathe_. Feel all the tension slip away. All the anger and fear. All the annoyance over _him_ mixed with latent feelings and outrage. Every negative emotion draining out and dissipating. Like sand in the wind. Yes. Very much like that.

 

She thinks she can feel a sense of inner calm. Peaceful and tranquil but unassuming. That’s the Jedi way.

 

Okay Force, I’m ready. Come to me.

 

She opens up her mind. Opens up her heart. Feels for the power of the universe. It’s so close. Almost right there. She can feel the pressure of it enveloping her. Sinking in through her skin and starting to fill her.

 

Except...

 

It’s gone. Just like that. The spark that would have started the flame extinguished before it even had the chance to form.

 

She growls. Grits her teeth and slams her hand against the hard tabletop. It hurts, shattering her feeble attempt at concentration, but the pain helps to hold back the tears of frustration that threaten to form.

 

Still no Kylo. If he knows what she’s up to, he doesn’t seem too concerned about it. That cocky fucker. But no, he may think that he has her now, but he doesn’t know shit. She almost got away last time. Very nearly. And next time he’ll be more careful but she’ll be better. Next time is a guarantee.

 

Rey closes her eyes. It’s as dark behind her lids as it was when they were open.

 

Another deep breath.

 

Her hand hurts. Her _soul_ hurts.

 

Try again, Rey. Never give up, never surrender.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No Exit indeed. Hell truly is other people.
> 
> Next chapter: The Doted On Girlfriend  
> Because Kylo’s taking a page from the Anakin Skywalker School of Lady Pleasing and being all suave and debonair.


	4. The Doted on Girlfriend

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kylo tries to understand women. He fails.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Optional drinking game: take a shot every time Rey tells Kylo to go away in this chapter. Double shot every time he actually does.

Rey is pretty sure, maybe not quite 100%, but _pretty sure_ that Kylo has been staring at her for as long as she’s been awake.

 

More likely it’s been for far longer before that as well, but all she can tell for sure is the uncomfortably personal sensation of feeling his breath so close to her. He hasn’t moved. Or spoken or reached out to her, through the Force or though the now old fashioned way of skin-to-skin contact. In fact, she wouldn’t know that he’s there at all if it wasn’t for the soft shifting of the air between them.

 

She tries to ignore him. He hates it when she ignores him. Therefore, it’s so lovely to annoy him by ignoring. But her scorn also backfires against her when it brings to mind all the recent things that she’d much rather to forget. Forever. Like the last time she’d neglected his attentions for too long and all the unpleasantness that had brought.

 

A creak of leather brings her back to the present, but she hides it well. Stares at any spot but where he is until she slowly begins to realize that she can faintly see the room she’s in. It’s still quite dark, of course. Her eyes are open and all she can tell is a dim green light emanating as a barely-visible glow from some piece of electronical in the corner. It definitely wasn’t there before, and that brings something else to her attention.

 

She’s somewhere new. The last thing she can remember is giving herself a ra-ra pep talk while being chained to the table. The table that she can’t see anymore.That, combined with his unusually broody silence, lead her to one irrefutably disturbing and obnoxious conclusion.

 

“You _moved_ me.”

 

She growls the words. Bares her teeth and can’t help but feel like a kitten puffing up and hissing when a bigger,meaner cat comes by to try and take her food from her.

 

No response. She glares at the shadows of the ceiling. The shadows surrounding them both. The room slowly fills with the most loaded of silences until she absolutely can’t stand it anymore.

 

“What are you, the galaxy's biggest creeper?”

 

He's far worse than that, but the words come out so naturally, rolling from the forefront of her thoughts onto her tongue and beyond.

 

In response, she gets a swish of fabric as she imagines that he shifts position.

 

“Yes.”

 

A monosyllable. His version of the silent treatment or is he just being overly dramatic?

 

And is this even the same room that she’s now in? It looks like the same room. But it's now almost empty. A large, open space of metal walls that seem to be closing in on her like a vice under the heavy gaze of her captor.

 

He clears his throat. Trying to bait her into giving him her full attention. She’d been talking to him and then pulled away and it’s such an obvious weakness of his that it almost makes him an easy target. Now there’s no way that she’s going to look at him. Absolutely not. Even if it sounds like he’s taken his mask off.

 

“I turned the lights on for you,” he tries again. “That was nice of me.”

 

Rey blinks. Frowns and tries to decipher his real agenda. She's used to him saying nonsense to get her attention, but this time it's odd because it's not only true but also thoroughly suspicious.

 

It makes her itch to know what’s going on in his head. Normally, she might be able to pluck it from the surface of his mind without him even knowing. She had actually become quite good at that. Tried it a few times with Master Luke and had either been successfully covert about it so as not to be noticed, or at least had been tolerated for trying and succeeding.

 

And she’s willing to bet that Kylo’s mind is one hell of a lot more interesting than her Master’s. But, of course, she can’t do that now. Because her bondmate is the devil himself and the only thing worse than using _the Thing_ between them would be to ask him directly. Communication is for adults, not prisoner and Creeper Keeper.

 

He sighs. Seemingly in agreement with her that all of this has been going very poorly.

 

“You're pretty when you sleep,” he tries again.

 

Pretty when she sleeps and when she’s angry? Well damn, guess she must have been pretty this whole time since he took her here.

 

And rolling her eyes is pointless, but she does it anyhow. It's such a _Kylo_ like thing to say. Perfectly and exactly like how she expects him to act, though maybe he could be a little more menacing and do his part to break up the forced intimacy of the moment?

 

“Don't touch me.”

 

He had been reaching for her, but his hand stops in mid-air. No gloves, she notes, eyeing the proximity of his surprisingly well-groomed fingernails. He usually has gloves on. She frowns at this before finally looking at his face. Finally fully acknowledging his existence.

 

The expression he wears is so blank that she hates him even more for it. The neutral background hum of their bond calls to her, tempting her to use it to see what's really going on in his head. Why he’s really here. And he hesitates before pulling back in acceptance of her request.

 

“How long were you watching me?”

 

She has a disturbing moment of clarity that it was probably for much longer than she’d first assumed. Or maybe even the whole night cycle. Hours and hours of him just… sitting there and staring at her? Is that possible? Doesn’t he have anything better to do?

 

Kylo leans away, relaxing back against the chair that he'd pulled up next to her new bed. He doesn't answer, though. But continues to watch her squirm and scowl.

 

“You scrunch your nose up when you’re mad. It’s cute.”

 

There’s a hint of genuine warmth to his voice. _No._ That’s just unforgivable.

 

“Kriff you're an asshole.”

 

A tilt of his head. His face fall expressionless once again. That's all she gets. Their connection buzzes louder in her head and... she gives in with a deep sigh. Just for a millisecond. Touches on the Thing and feels that he's expectant.

 

Expectant and intrigued. He’s trying to hide from her how delighted he secretly is by what she’s just done.

 

Oh, so _that_ was it… He had been waiting for her to use their kriffing bond. He has to know how much she hates it. Hates being made to use it as her only replacement for that which he’s taken away. And especially how much she hates him right now or anytime. She’s told him that a thousand different ways.

 

Her anger rises as the corners of his mouth twitch. Not quite a full on smile, but he’s such an asshole that he wants her to know that he’s pleased with her. As a reward, he reaches out again. Strokes the apple of her cheek before she twists her head to the side and glares at the wall. Looking at anywhere and nothing except where he is.

 

“Get out. Now.”

 

Well, she’s hardly in a position to be making a demand. But he accepts to it anyhow. Gives her a parting bop on the tip of her nose before pulling back and standing up.

 

_I’ll be back soon._

 

He leaves with that unspoken promise and a flounce of his cape. A click of his fingers and he commands the lights off before he struts out. Again putting her in total darkness and feeling more confused than ever.

 

*

 

“You never asked about them. With all the effort that you’ve made to keep them alive, I would have thought they would have meant more to you than that.”

 

Rey would guess that several hours have gone by since her morning wakeup call. She’d started off trying to pass the time by meditating. Then quickly gave up on clearing her mind the Jedi Way and took advantage of not being chained up for once. A vigorous exercise session in her small dark room had left her sweaty, angry, and exhausted.

 

Since then, they’ve been ceaselessly arguing in one-sided circles, and Rey’s wearing just a towel. Nearly naked and desperately trying to figure out the fastest way to get _him_ out of her room so she can put some damn clothes on.

 

“Finn and Poe?” she finally answers, trying not to tug on her impromptu toga and give away how uncomfortable she’s feeling. “Oh please, they’re both fine. You wouldn’t have the nerve to really hurt them.”

 

“You sound so sure about that.”

 

“I am.”

 

He steps forward. She steps back. They’d been going like that for the whole time since he’d walked in on her just as she was stepping out of the sonic shower in the adjoining bathroom that her new cell had so very generously been fitted with.

 

“Why? I’ve hurt them before. I _captured_ you. And now you just assume they’re fine and unharmed? Do you really care so little about them?”

 

He reaches out, either to hold her still or cop a feel, and she immediately slaps his hand away. The way his eyes follow every shift in the fabric hurriedly wrapped around her prompts her to give up the higher ground and scuttle to the far side of the table and get distance from her tormentor.

 

“They’re _fine_ ,” she insists, holding her arms as tightly to her body as she can. “If they weren’t, you’d have never stopped talking about it. I bet you didn’t even capture them, did you?”

 

She knows that for a fact. While the details of her Booze Bonanza Night are foggy at best, it comes as a certainty that this jackoff in front of her would be strutting around like a fucking peacock if he’d managed to capture not just one of his mortal enemies but _three at once._

 

“We’re not enemies, Rey.”

 

“Oh that’s where you’re wrong.” Asshole.

 

“No, we’re not. Not anymore, with everything that we’ve shared in these last few weeks.”

 

No death glare in the universe can stop him from bringing _that_ up, can it?

 

“Fuck. You.”

 

He looks almost offended. Good. Serves him right.

 

“You really have a quite a foul mouth, don’t you?”

 

“Get out of my head. And fuck off. You’re just angry because I’m right.”

 

He changes direction. Going counterclockwise around the table for a few steps then waiting for her to catch up to the change and retreat from him again. A physical manifestation of the bizarre and aimless conversation they’ve been having.

 

Wait… a conversation? By the gods, they actually are talking to each other. Sort of. If Rey weren’t in a towel, she might try to find a way to take advantage of this situation.

 

Kylo’s mouth quirks. Never full on smiling, but just enough.

 

“Do you know how easy it was to catch you?”

 

Rey shuffles back, giving up the dosey-doe to edge close to her pile of clothes. Kylo already has her at enough disadvantages, she doesn’t need to add ‘fear of a nip-slip’ to the list.

 

“When you abducted me on Coruscant? I’m sure I put up a good fight.”

 

He snorts. Rey feels her cheeks start to burn as a profoundly unflattering image is pushed into her head. An image _of her_. Sprawled out on the floor in an open for business posture. Apparently, making it all the way to the bed had proven much too much for her in her piss-addled condition.

 

Yeah, that’s right. Future Jedi right there, ladies and gentlemen.

 

And in her mind she can see Kylo as he was looming over her. Planning on taking her away but not expecting it to be so easy. He had his mask on, ready for action, and… put his lightsaber away with a disbelieving shake of his head. _Nope, won’t be needing this here_.

 

“Kriff you...” she mutters.

 

So that’s why the Jedi aren’t allowed to drink, huh?

 

“That and other reasons.”

 

He’s smiling now. It comes through more in the unexpected warmth of his voice than any expression.

 

“Stay out of my thoughts. And you look like your uncle when you’re all disapproving and head-shakey like that.”

 

His face falls back to neutral. The brief happy mood instantly irradiated by the comparison to her Master. In fact, he gets irrationally annoyed by even the slightest of mention of-

 

“He must be disappointed in you a lot, I take it? I can’t say I’m surprised, not when you’re so clearly not taking your lessons seriously and-”

 

“I was going to fuck him. That was the plan.”

 

Rey had blurted out the words without thinking. Kylo’s irrational levels of hatred towards Poe were an obvious weakness of his and she’d been holding that card for the right moment.

 

What happened next was almost fascinating. Rey get the honor of watching every nuance of the physical changes in Kylo. Watching how his mind rapidly derails itself when he crosses the bridge of her lie. How he goes from arrogant stalker to mute in the face of horror at the very implication that she was...

 

 _Oh come on_ , is the idea of her boffing one of her best friends really so world-breakingly shocking? His face is literally turning white. It’s such an overreaction and he’s acting like she just told him that she’d been planning on screwing-

 

“I meant Poe you idiot! Not your _damn uncle_!”

 

Gods, he actually thought that she and her Master would… that gives her an idea.

 

She tries for a nanosecond to imagine Luke naked but… ew… no. She starts grossing _herself_ out with that one. And Kylo is staring at her with a bugeyed, pleading panic that she actually feels a little sorry for him.

 

Fine then, asshole. She settles on a somewhat murky mental image of her bouncing on a naked Poe like a pogostick.

 

He stomps toward her then, sending the table she tries to put between them clattering against the wall with a flick of the Force that makes her jealous enough to remember to be angry at him and not afraid.

 

“You wouldn't _dare_!”

 

Oh, well he certainly snapped out of his uncle-fucking horror paralysis in record time.

 

She shoves hard against his chest. Struggling to keep her towel on with one arm while demanding that he show her personal space proper respect.

 

“You _wouldn't_ ,” he insists again, squaring his stance unnecessarily because there’s no way she can make him budge if he doesn’t want to.

 

“Why not? _You_ did.”

 

They’ve never directly talked about that night. This was a conscious decision on her part made for a very good reason.

 

“That was different.”

 

Kylo has the nerve to brush her off. He has the _nerve_ to marginalize what he did with the other girl.

 

Rey seethes, feeling her self control start to splinter inside her. She shoves at him with all her strength. Pushing against him with both hands and snarling as he grabs her wrists, half holding her to him and half holding her back.

 

“Yeah, it sure was!” She’s so angry that she completely ignores how her towel has slipped free of her chest. “You _actually did it._ I was just going to-”

 

“He’s not worthy of you. He’s nothing.”

 

Kylo lets go with one hand to pull up on the edge of the towel now wadded around her hips and cover her again. She’s long past caring about that or anything other than to get him the hell away from her.

 

“You cheated on me!”

 

Again, it’s too late to take the words back, no matter how much Rey regrets them. Bringing up the one thing she had wanted to avoid at all costs.

 

He falls silent as the true center of their conflict is laid out between them in all it’s ugly and miserable glory.

 

“You…. you did that and-”

 

Rey’s voice breaks suddenly and she stops herself as her throat constricts. No. Oh no no. There is no way she will start crying. She’s done crying.

 

“Rey...” He tries to stroke her face. She can’t bring herself to look at him to see if he’s gloating over or not.

 

“Get out.”

 

“Rey.”

 

“ _Get out._ ”

 

She snaps the words. It’s the second time she’s ordered this of him, and now her emotions are pulled so tight that she’s not rightly sure what will happen if he doesn’t obey.

 

“I didn’t mean to.”

 

She snorts, wrapping her free hand around her again exposed chest.

 

“Oh you didn’t mean to? Looked pretty fucking deliberate from what I saw. How long did you spend looking for that girl before you fucked her?”

 

It had been one of the cruelest things anyone had ever done to her. Cruel and confusing and passionate and consuming. If that was what the Dark Side felt like, no wonder Kylo is so hated by everyone now. No one would ever be able to love a monster that does things like that.

 

“You can stop now, Rey.”

 

Kylo sounds as upset as she is, but he steps back then, letting go of her and looking aside as she sits on the edge of the bed and half-heartedly tries to cover herself.

 

“I’m sorry,” he says after a time.

 

There’s a dismissive shrug to his voice as he offers the useless apology and Rey can feel her eyes begin to burn as she starts to lose her side of her inner conflict.

 

_Get out._

 

She can’t trust her voice to say it. Scrunches her eyelids half-closed to hold her tears in and she hears him sigh. He takes a step closer, then pauses. Stares down at her and she can feel the weight of his expression even if she refuses to see it for herself. Instead, she glares at her tightly clasped together hands.

 

Her nailpolish is starting to chip. She’d actually put some on before her fateful trip to Coruscant. That’s a far more interesting thing to look at than the inconsequential monster standing in front of her.

 

Their bond twitches, humming and trying to soothe away how upset she is with him.

 

“Lights on or off?”

 

His voice is a little softer. Just a touch. And now coming from the far side of the room by the door.

 

Why does he even bother asking?

 

She’s not going to bother answering.

 

He reaches out to her through their bond. She’s as closed off from him as she possibly can be. And he leaves without another word.

 

Rey takes her time getting dressed before glumly crawling into her new bed and adopting the meditation stance. Inner peace. She needs it right now. Can’t wait even one more second for it to show up in her life.

 

*

 

There isn’t a lot to do in the room and Rey is getting bored.

 

Kylo had left the lights on this time, at least. Presumably as a kindness and apology for being such an awful host who keeps making his guest cry because he’s so horrible. She wonders why he even bothers. Why he bothered to capture her and lock her away and not have the decency to torture her.

 

He’s not supposed to act like this. He’s a _villain_. He’s supposed to act evil and cruel.

 

Well, okay, he’s been nothing really really evil and cruel to her, but… for godssake man, break out the knives and the torture drone and mind rape. She knows that he secretly wants to. Just get it over with and stop acting like there’s really a human being buried down there somewhere.

 

It’s the human illusion of Kylo that she can’t deal with. Next time she’s going to insist he wears his mask. It makes it so much easier for her to see the true nature of the wolf behind the sheep’s clothing.

 

Kriff, he even has sheep-worthy fluffy hair. What an asshole. How _dare_ he...

 

It’s too much. This whole situation that just keeps on turning and turning and Rey’s starting to think that she’s going to completely lose it if she doesn’t get out of here soon.

 

So she meditates. Angrily. Tries to calm herself back from the edge. Then she works out. Tries to exercise away all her stress. Paces like a caged animal at the zoo. Wonders if he’s watching her.

 

Their Bond is always there. Quieter and sadly subdued after their latest fight, but still forever in the background just waiting for one or the other of them to give in and use it.

 

At least her new room has a fresher. Just a toilet, sink, and sonic shower. Not much but it gives her something to do. Locking herself in the little room that she knows her captor could get into in the blink of an eye still gives her a transparent sense of security. She’ll take whatever she can get right now. And she always takes her clothes with her. Whatever, they just get cleaner this way, and gods knows how long she’s going to be trapped in here until her next, flawless escape idea presents itself.

 

Sometime during her second shower of the day, the one she took right after an absolutely exhausting bodyweight training session using the sparse pieces of furniture as supports, Rey feels _him_ in her room again. It should have been so obvious that she doesn’t want to see him, ever ever again, but he either doesn’t care or just can’t stay away from her.

 

She starts to hurriedly dress, fully expecting him to barge in on her at any moment. But then his force signature disappears almost as quickly as it had come in.

 

Her cell is empty when she cautiously sticks her head out. No to Kylo, yes to the lights. And yes to something on the pillow of her bed.

 

Chocolates.

 

He’d… left her a box of chocolates. She stares at it, debating the likelihood of her hallucinating versus this being some nefarious plan of his own. Could he be trying to poison her now? Is that what’s going on?

 

Or maybe he sensed that she’s fucking starving because, every time her stomach rumbles, she sends a spike of malice through to him.

 

And goddsdamnit, it’s even shaped like a heart.

 

What. _The_ _actual f_ _uck_. Is wrong with this man?

 

He is insane. Certifiable. Lunatic lunatic lunatic.

 

She pokes at the box with the tip of her finger. Wishes she had a ten foot pole to express the proper level of her sentiment towards it.

 

It sits there. It’s a box, Rey. Of course it’s just going to sit there.

 

And then she practically dives in head-first. Shoving as many of the luscious candies into her mouth as she can fit in at once while pointedly ignoring the memory of Master Luke attempting to teach her basic table manners. The fact that they taste really, really good is just…

 

What an irredeemable asshole, right? If he can’t have the decent to be a cold hearted villain, he can give her shitty insta-portions or something so she can hate him any more.

 

With every mouthful it becomes just the tiniest bit harder to stay righteously furious with him. Was that why she’s been so on-edge since their last encounter? She was just incredibly hangry?

 

No. No, it’s because she’s afraid of him. He’s a monster and he’s trying to get her. She can’t let herself forget that. She needs to remember all the times she’s been terrified of him. Like… like when she’d almost escaped. She’d been _so close_ and then he’d jumped on her. Leaped and caught her, black cloak flying around them like bat wings, and threw her down a flight of stairs. He could have killed her then. Maybe he was trying to.

 

Except he’d held her as they’d tumbled head over feet. Deliberately absorbed the worst of the impact himself to spare her from it. She can almost feel his arms still around her. Holding her tightly. Securely. In any other context, it…

 

No. Nothing. She hates him. He’s a monster.

 

The memory of the arms changes. Transforms from restraining her to a gentler embrace. Rubbing her arms up and down in a blatant show of affection.

 

_Go. Away._

 

A pause. Then the ghostly impression of a thumb starts tracing circles along her shoulder blades. Pushing relaxation and heat into her tense and now workout-exhausted muscles.

 

_I am away._

 

_Not far enough, apparently. Now go away and never come back._

 

He’s smiling. Wherever he is, he’s smiling and their bond smiles with him.

 

 _You have chocolate on your lips_.

 

Before he can even think about Force-touching her mouth, she does it herself. Scrubs at her face with the back of her hand and ignores the feeling of the daydream presence settling itself into a more comfortable position behind.

 

_Are you still hungry? I can bring you something else._

 

_Fuck off and die._

 

He’s chuckling now. Her hackles rise at how much she amusing him.

 

_I hate you._

 

_Yes, so I’ve been told._

 

_Great. Now go away._

 

_No._

 

He rests his chin against her shoulder. She automatically jerks forward and tries to headbutt him away except its rather hard to give a phantasm a bloody nose like she did last time.

 

_I’m trying to be nice, Rey. You should appreciate that._

 

_Get out of my head and stay out. You’re not welcome in here._

 

Bond or not, she’d kick him out in an airlock in a hot second if she had the Force. That would be so satisfying. She’d love every second of watching him suffocate.

 

_If you want to be a lightsider, you need to control thoughts like that._

 

_Thanks but I don’t need any advice from you._

 

The phantom chin comes back. Even in her mind, his head is heavy enough to make her lean against her arm to support the additional weight.

 

_What you need is comfort. I’m trying to give you comfort._

 

Is that the tip of his nose nuzzling her temple? That’s what it feels like. If only he were here in the flesh. This would be a prime cartilage smashing opportunity.

 

_No, Kylo. What you’re doing is groping me. I don’t need gropes right now._

 

The phantom nuzzling stops. Somehow his breath can tickle her ear even if he’s not really there, and she shakes her head to dispel the ookie feeling it creates.

 

_Oh? So is there something else you’d prefer?_

 

Rey can’t help but find his words suggestive. Her cheeks start to burn as some of the more vibrant memories of their mutual lonely nights flash before her eyes. And then the arms leave her, the weight on her shoulder disappearing all of a sudden.

 

_Kylo?_

 

She calls out to him, surprised by the change. She would have sworn that he’d tease her about those… incidents. Or want to keep going with what he’d barely started.

 

_Hold on, Rey. I’m coming._

 

_What? Oh kriff no. Fuck off. Go away._

 

Panic starts to rise inside her. He’s not about to… run over here and ravish her or anything like that, right? She’d wanted him to act more villainously, but not like _that_.

 

She needs to arm herself. No way that she’s going to get ravished by her lunatic bondmate without putting up one hell of a fight first. There’s got to be something that she can use.

 

The chair? That’s about it. If she had the Force, she could use it to pick up the table and squish him like a cockroach.

 

Of course, if she had the Force, she wouldn’t be in this mess. When she escapes, she’ll need to get Luke to teach her how to out of these damn collars. There’s got to be a way. First though, she needs to focus on getting the hell out of here. Totally unmolested,preferably.

 

*

 

Kylo had learned his lesson from last time, unfortunately.

 

Rey had been waiting by the door as she felt him get closer. Chair in hand, poised, and fully ready to just smash the shit out of his skull with it.

 

Again, she hadn’t honestly expected it to work, so it comes as zero surprise and only mild disappointment when he hangs back after opening the door. Cocks his masked head at her in a clear indicator of _‘busted!’_ then send the chair flying out of her hands with a flick of his wrist.

 

She stands up, rolls her eyes, and walks away. Giving him the cold shoulder since she knows how much he loves that.

 

“Rey...”

 

“Whatever. I had to try, right?”

 

He’s not even angry at her. Their bond is excited. _He_ is excited.

 

She freezes mid-step. He’s not actually about to-

 

“Kylo!” She turns as she hears him stalk forwards, quickly closing the distance between them. Getting her knee ready for Round Two but, instead of seizing her in an amorous embrace like she’d assumed he was heading with this, he shoves something light into her defending hands. Steps back and takes off his mask as he watches her reaction.

 

Rey is too stupefied by the bouquet in her arms to demand he keep the wretched thing on like she wanted.

 

“You… these are flowers.”

 

“Top of the class.”

 

She raises an eyebrow. His expression is pathetically open and readable.

 

“You’re giving me flowers?”

 

She’s not sure why she’s asking. It seems obvious. Okay, maybe she’s asking the wrong thing.

 

“Why are you giving me flowers?”

 

His chin tips down towards the floor as he hides his eyes from hers. For some reason, the strangest idea suddenly pops into her mind.

 

“Your...grandfather? What does he have to do with-”

 

“I thought we weren’t supposed to go in each others’ heads anymore?”

 

She’s so wrapped up in the bizarre image of a young man with bright eyes that she’s never seen before in her life that it takes a few seconds before his words work their way through into her awareness.

 

Then the moment breaks and she steps back, staring at the flowers and turning them this way and that.

 

“I don’t understand.”

 

“Do you like them?”

 

“No.”

 

She can feel his surprise shiver through their bond. Why would he think she would like them? She doesn’t want anything from him.

 

“But… he said that you… why not?”

 

She shakes her head at him and he looks so confused. Great. Now they match.

 

“Rey?”

 

“You’re horrible. I don’t want these.” She tosses the bouquet onto the bed behind her and crosses her arms, thoroughly annoyed at him for constantly wasting her time.

 

“You’re angry at me?”

 

“...no shit. You’re just figuring that out now?”

 

He doesn’t answer, but his eyes kind of drift up to the ceiling like he’s seeking answers from above. She assumes that means a ‘yes’ to her question.

 

She rubs her temple and waits for him to leave. When he doesn’t, she glares at him and he glares right back.

 

“You’re beautiful.”

 

He growls the words. Looking so pissed off that she wonders if his face is just permanently frozen like that. It’s the angriest, most out of left field compliment she’s ever gotten.

 

“You’re… an asshole?”

 

A double blink. Pulling of his eyebrows together more.

 

“I just told you that you’re _beautiful_.”

 

“Yeah, that’s why I told you you’re an asshole. Now go away.”

 

Ow, what a headache he’s giving her. Lunatic bondmate induced headaches are always the worst.  She can almost see the cartoon-style thought bubble that reads ‘w _omen WTF?_ ’ form over his head.

 

“You...but...I… I’m being _nice_ to you! I’m just… _fuck!_ ”

 

Kylo punctuates his stuttering rant by burying both his hands into his hair and yanking. He gives a short, sharp howl and Rey wonders if one of his infamous destruction tantrums is about to leave her cell uninhabitable.

 

She backs away then, edging further to give herself more distance while ignoring the tugging in her chest. Their bond hates them both so much right now. The Thing calls to her, wanting reassurance, and she can’t fight it. She touches on the sharp wire of their connection without thinking. Kylo is upset. He’s trying to hide it. Anger flares within him and she can feel how he defaults to it because it’s familiar.

 

“Kylo...” she warns, eyeing the distance separating her and him and the door out.

 

He stomps forward, reaching for the flowers on her bed. She beats him to it, though. Quicker than he is, she snatches them away from his path of destruction and clutches the bouquet to her chest as she retreats again.

 

Then she catches herself, realizing what she’s doing and how it must look, and sets the flowers down behind her. Physically blocks them for her bondmate’s enraged view with her own body.

 

“You can’t have them.”

 

“You said you didn’t-”

 

“I know what I said, and you can’t have them. Now get out of my cell.”

 

He looms over her and she has to force herself to stand tall. The urge to cower from Mr. Tall, Dark, and Pissed Off is strong, but this whole twisted thing between them is just one big power play. She can’t let him think she’s afraid of him, even if their bond thrums to her racing heartbeat and his close proximity.

 

Without warning, he pushes her down, practically throwing her onto the bed. Rey yelps and scrambles backwards, kicking out at him wildly when he catches her ankle to hold in place.

 

“Stop it!” he shouts, easily deflecting her flurry of kicks and ineffective punches.

 

“Let me go!” She half flips over, crawling and clawing to get away from him. When he freezes her with the Force it’s all she can do to keep from screaming empty threats at him.

 

“Why are you being so difficult?” he bellows, dragging her back to the edge of the bed so they’re face to face. “Why?! You’re not supposed to-”

 

He stops himself this time. Cuts his words mid-sentence and she can feel him prowling around in her mind.

 

“You… you think I’m trying to hurt you?”

 

The force freeze drops and he stares at her, over-expressive face giving away every bit of his sudden shock.

 

Rey holds still for a few moments, gauging his reaction. When he doesn’t move, she slowly eases herself up and scoots back. He pulls away just enough for her to sit up.

 

“I’m not a monster, Rey. I hate it when you think that about me.”

 

It’s not the right moment for her to tell him to get out of her head. Not when she is all but surrounded by him and he could snap at any second.

 

His expression changes. The scattered rage and permanent scowl ebbing away into something else. She watches speechlessly as he closes his eyes and sinks down to the floor. He’s trying so hard to keep himself in check. She can feel every part of his efforts and how much of a a struggle it is for him. So she lets him reach out for her again. Blindly grab her hips and pull forward as he rests his head on her legs.

 

An exceedingly strange and awkward silence falls over them as her mind goes blank to anything but how bizarre this is.

 

“Rey?”

 

His voice is muffled by her knees. The knees he’s currently buried his face against as he embraces and squeezes her legs, pulling them close to his chest.

 

All Rey can think of is that he’s kneeling before her. Literally kneeling before. A strange, vulnerable expanse that her defenses don’t know which way is up or what to make of this.

 

“Mhmm?” she hums the noncommittal noise. Wishing that this day would be over. This whole experience. That he’d dematerialize and she’d wake up from this strange nightmare she’s having.

 

“Say something to me,” he orders. Demanding like a petulant child who only knows one way how to get what he wants.

 

Say… something? Anything. She can feel him effortlessly now, and she doesn’t even have to use their bond to know what he really means. He said it himself to her before, after all. Don’t ignore me. Stop ignoring me. I’ll do anything for you to _stop ignoring me_.

 

It’s too much to take. Too conflicting with everything Rey knows about this man bowing before her for the second time. And yet she can’t find it in herself to throw him away again.

 

She reaches out. Hesitates when she catches his eye. The eye that’s not hidden under a mop of pitch dark hair that spills across her legs. Such an odd thing how quiet this moment is right now. It makes her feel so young. She _is_ so young. So uncertain about what to do now when she can’t change the past.

 

So she touches him. Pushes his loose hair out of his face and tucks it behind his ear so she can meet both of his eyes. Their bond likes that. It gives her a convenient excuse.

 

He tips his head, resting one side of his temple against the boney top of her knee.

 

“I don’t...” know what to say. She really doesn’t. He faintly nods, pulling her a little closer, practically resting his face in her lap now and she can’t tell whether it’s his breath that’s catching or her own.

 

Their bond falls beautifully silent. Finally. It’s almost like it’s held in suspense, waiting to see how this will end, or maybe it’s too afraid to do anything to break this glass-fragile treaty.

 

Kylo closes his eyes when she rests her palm against his head. Not quite petting him, but this is by far the calmest, sweetest moment they’ve ever shared together. Everything else had been extremes of hatred or hurt or rage or… passion.

 

_Shit._

 

She can’t have passion in her life anymore can she? Not that she ever truly did, not in the flesh. But now, as an aspiring Jedi… she must be serene. She doesn’t know how to be serene, though oddly Kylo’s helping her find exactly that right now.

 

That’s when it hits her.

 

Something that she had been avoiding so much for so long. Now she can finally see the real truth behind their connection.

 

Their _bond…_ It isn’t what she thought it was. Sometimes, and she loathes it so much, but sometimes she can’t help but feel empathy towards him. And somehow he apparently can feel every bit of her own doubts and fears as clearly as if they were his own.

 

Sympathy. Empathy. Understanding without conditions.

 

All of those emotions are firmly grounded on the light side of the Force. Their bond itself… it’s not the work of evil and darkness like she’d always told herself. The excuse she’d given to stay so far away. If it was, she would have no hesitancy to take advantage of this situation. Use the weakness and vulnerability that Kylo is giving her now to secure her escape.

 

Instead, she stays quiet. Strokes his hair and lets him be the one to pull away. Lets him be the one to walk out the door without another word or look back.

 

The truth is so obvious now. Their bond is made of light. It was created by the light side of the Force. It’s astonishing. Defying every thread of logic and reason.

 

And Rey is left utterly speechless by the implications about what to do next.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Is this chapter too long? It’s over 6k words and I personally don’t like reading chapters over 4 or 5k because aint nobody got time for that. I have 2 more chapters and an epilogue planned but I can break them into 5 shorter pieces if anyone would prefer?
> 
> Next chapter (or chapters): A romantic candlelit dinner leads to a night of passion and bliss. Just kidding, there’s no romance or bliss. Some passion, though. And our couple even attempts to occupy the same space and not argue non-stop. It goes great!


	5. Surviving Your Obsession

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Turn down the saturation filter, Kylo, you’re almost glowing...

Rey went to bed that night feeling like something had awoken in her.

 

For the first time since its conception, she wasn’t terrified of their bond. It wasn’t just a Thing to her anymore, but rather a new life. A part of her new life that she has to come to terms with because she will always have it, for better or for worse. It doesn’t matter that she doesn’t want it. It doesn’t matter that she never asked for it. Their bond is here now, here to stay and with her forever.

 

Acceptance is the Jedi way, and she can live with that. But that still leaves what in the hell to do about Kylo.

 

If the Force had decided to bond her to someone she actually cared about, she would have been scared, but also ecstatic. She finally would have had someone who could never leave her, even when they go away.

 

Or, if she’d been bonded to a total stranger, hmmm… Well, the odds were still overwhelmingly in favor of Dear Random Person being a better partner.

 

But that’s not how things worked out, is it? Now she’s stuck with _him_ and everything that she discovered about their connection was… what are the words for it? As improbable as it is unwelcome.

 

She can still feel him, even now when it’s been hours since he slipped out the door in silence. She can feel his presence floating in the air around her. The weight of his thick skull against her bones. Even still feel the unlikely softness of how his hair had felt against her fingertips.

 

This is exactly what she was so afraid of. She had opened herself up to him so briefly, too afraid to turn him away and what that would have meant for them both. But even in that limited window of peace she’d felt something intrinsically change between them.

 

Rey hates him.

 

No.

 

She doesn’t. Not really.

 

Or, at least, not fully and completely, like she should. Even thinking that she doesn’t hate him is a betrayal to both her new principles and everyone who cares for her. Everyone who keeps fighting day after day, no matter how high the odds are against them, to make the universe a better place.

 

People sacrificed themselves to their cause. They _died_ for it, and her heart must remain true in their honor.

 

Sometimes she thinks about asking Kylo about Han. Demanding answers and absolute prostration and telling him that it will never be enough.

 

She doesn’t, though. Because, what if Kylo tells her something she can’t handle? He had been getting worse, recently. Before he took her. His side of their bond had been more filled with despair. It used to be that he was so angry and desperate, clawing his way into her head no matter how much it hurt them both. Recently, however, it almost felt like he was giving up. Succumbing to the darkness inside of him with a resignation that frightens her more than anything. Because, if he fully gives into it, what will happen to her? Will she be strong enough to fight it even then?

 

Their bond is made of light.

 

She has to keep telling herself that because it just doesn’t seem real. And he wasn’t dark when he was with her. Always so desperate and needy, but also _hopeful_.

 

A lost little boy and a lost little girl, doomed throughout their lives and maybe beyond as well.

 

And now that she’s finally starting to come to terms with the true nature of this thing between them, it’s flooding her. As if their bond was just waiting, waiting, _waiting_ for the slightest chink in her armor to break through and sink in deep.

 

Is this what it’s like for Kylo? He never fought it like she did. If a single epiphany can make her question everything she believes in… what does it do to him?

 

No wonder he’s so broken. It must be hell inside his head.

 

With perfect timing, she can sense him become aware of her. Notice that she was starting to poke at their connection.

 

_Do you want me to come to you, Rey?_

 

Oh gods. Damnit.

 

_Never._

 

_You know I’m going to anyhow._

 

She wouldn’t have expected anything less.

 

*

 

“No. Absolutely not.”

 

More of the last few minutes have been spent with her eyes rolling along the top of her field of vision than otherwise. It’s starting to give her a headache, but that pales in comparison to the boundless weariness she felt when Kylo had shown up in her room and tried to _dress_ her.

 

“Your clothes stink,” he tells her, making a show of wrinkling his nose in disapproval. “I’m sick of smelling them every time I come in here.”

 

“Then don’t come in here.”

 

Kylo pointedly looks down at the pile of unwanted cloth on the floor. Her frown grows as she glares at it and the dark peripheral shape that is Kylo shifts from one foot to the other as he watches her.

 

Her regular clothes are just fine, thanks but no thanks. She’s been taking them into the sonic shower to get cleaner along with the rest of her and it’s been working. Sort of. A proper water-based bath would be lovely, but some things simply aren’t in the cards.

 

“Rey,” he prompts, seeming to be so impatient.

 

“They’re all in black, aren’t they?”

 

The shape stills. Fidgets until he realizes it and clasps his hands behind his back to stop them.

 

“According to First Order regulations, it’s expected-”

 

“Bullshit. You want me to wear all black so I’d look like one of your Knights, isn’t that it?”

 

When she looks up, his guilty look on his face tells her all that she needs to know.

 

Well hello again, top of Rey’s eye sockets. At this rate, she’s either going to go cross-eyed or they’re going to get stuck up there.

 

“No,” he answers far too quickly to be credible. He takes an edging step a little closer and she immediately stomps on the all black pile with the toe of her foot to keep it where it belongs.

 

“Kylo?”

 

“Rey.”

 

“Are you lying to me?”

 

Kylo swallows. It sounds unnecessarily loud in her little metal room.

 

“...yes.”

 

“Get out.”

 

His eyebrows flinch in two distinct increments. Followed by a third triggered from her deep sigh.

 

“Rey… you can’t keep throwing me out of here. I’m your-” he stops himself, seeming to rethink whatever he was about to say. “Nevermind.”

 

Her what? Mortal enemy? Warden? _Boyfriend_?

 

“Oh gods Kylo, please finish that fucking thought. I dare you. I double motherfucking dare you.”

 

Frustration starts to bubble up between them. She can’t honestly tell if its his or her own that she’s feeling.

 

Kylo changes direction, both literally and figuratively. Backs away and gives up on the clothes in favor of pacing her cell. He seems nervous, like there’s something on his mind but he’s not sure how to say it.

 

“Oh just spit it out already, Kylo. You’re driving me up the wall.”

 

Rey crosses her arms tightly across her chest. He watches the movement with a level of interest that she doesn’t appreciate very much.

 

“Have dinner with me.”

 

He stops pacing and watches with wide eyes for her reaction. She aims to disappoint him with pure, stone-faced contempt.

 

He clears his throat, trying again.

 

“If you’re hungry, you _will_ have dinner with me. And you’ll change out of those stinking rags first. I won’t tolerate you leaving a stench in my room also.”

 

“Well that’s kind of a low blow, and I’ll have you know that I’ve smelled much, much worse.”

 

“That I don’t doubt.”

 

She wrinkles her nose in annoyance. Then forces it down when she catches a waft of herself. Perhaps… there’s some truth to his argument, but he’s being such an ass about it and it’s his own damn fault for capturing her anyhow.

 

“I’m not hungry.”

 

It’s a lie. She’s close to ravenous by this point. The sugar high inducing chocolate binge from earlier had only temporarily staved off her famine, and when the energy boost had gone away she was left hungrier than ever.

 

Naturally, of course, this is the exact moment her stomach chooses to rumble ominously. She glares at him as he half-smiles. Either he made it do that on purpose or, since everything about this situation is 100% his fault, he should have put her in a room with less acoustics.

 

“I haven’t fed you a proper meal since you came here.”

 

Wow, no kidding? She’s actually perfectly aware of that without him stating the obvious. He had tried to, earlier. It had ended up on the floor of her old cell next to his dignity after she’d given him a physical expression of her sentiment between his legs.

 

“Then bring it here and go away. I’m sick of looking at you.”

 

Just how much more verbal abuse is it going to take to get rid of him? Surely he has to be getting as fed up with her as she is with him.

 

She pokes the Thing. Happiness rolls through their bond in her head. Genuine happiness. Either he’s genuinely glad that she’s willingly talking to him again, or he gets off on being put down. Neither would surprise her anymore.

 

“No. Do you know why I haven’t been feeding you?”

 

Even his voice is warmer than it used to be. It’s unsettling how little her scorn bothers him.

 

She shrugs. Nope. Not going to answer.

 

“Because,” he explains, “I knew that you would eventually get hungry enough and say yes.”

 

“You’re despicable.”

 

“Rey… Come on, it’s only dinner. It won’t be so bad.”

 

“Care to bet on that?”

 

He doesn’t quite smile, but there’s definitely a glint in his eye. “What are you offering?”

 

She flinches internally, but manages to keep it from reaching through to her face.

 

“Nothing. Forget it. Go away.”

 

Kylo purses his lips slightly. Tips his chin up and carefully studies her.

 

“Give it a try, Rey. Have dinner with me and, if you hate it, you can come back here whenever you want to.”

 

“Back to my cell? Oh how generous of you, my dear aspiring Sith lord.”

 

“If you’re trying to make that into an insult, it’s failing spectacularly.”

 

She snorts. Crosses her arms and wrinkles her nose again. That means ‘yes’, but with great reluctance.

 

Kylo nods solemnly. “I’ll be back in an hour. Get cleaned up and ready by then.”

 

Rey waits until he leaves to surreptitiously sniff her underarms. Hmm... Maybe a little scrubby in the sonic shower is due, but she’s damned sure not doing anything more than that to please him. Least of all putting on the hideous black garments that she walks over without a second glance.

 

*

 

Did he actually think that dinner was going to go well?

 

Foolish boy, of course it was going to be a disaster.

 

It was all purely strategic, but necessary. So, when she stomped into his room with him shadowing her like a black-clad apparition literally out of her nightmares, her defenses were fully up and ready to go.

 

Somehow she’d expected candles. Flower petals over every surface. Or maybe, just maybe, surprise! the interrogation chair would make it’s comeback after all.

 

Instead, her captor had quietly sat down at the table of his predictably dark and dreary room. Gestured at her to join him, then he poked his food around his plate while giving her a look of soft humor.

 

She was scowling. Confused and annoyed. Not wanting to be here but also not wanting to be cooped up in that little room with a miserably empty stomach for a moment longer.

 

“You don’t really know what to do with me, do you?”

 

He shrugs, pretending not to pay her much attention but she knows better. Her waiting plate of food is so close. Close to them _both_. Going over to it will be a concession, but even looking at it fills her with an acute mix of longing and reluctance.

 

Innuendo would have been appropriate response from him now. Or possessive threats, perhaps.

 

The corners of his eyes crinkle. Rey has to look away. That’s not the right face for him. He shouldn't’ look at her like that. Ever.

 

“Sit. Eat.” He taps the edge of her plate with his fork. A brief image of grabbing the utensil and stabbing him in the neck flutters through her mind but she pushes it back before he can catch onto it.

 

“No. I told you I’m not hungry.”

 

She’s being a child and she knows it, but… but he’s too damn _fond_ of her right now. She could sense nothing but open appreciation for her company coming off from him. Even without their _Thing,_ his expression made it perfectly obvious.

 

Kylo was happy. The two of them were together and they were only half-heartedly arguing. In turn, that made their bond was happy and Rey hated everything about every part of that.

 

Then the contemptible bastard shrugs again and reaches out. Starts to eat _her_ food right in front of her. The sheer _audacity..._

 

She storms over and snatches her portion away when his fork was mid-skewering. Then retreats back, clutching her plate next to her chest, and shoveling the food into her mouth with her bare fingers.

 

Kylo winces, watching with distaste as she eats like a half-feral animal.

 

“Rey...”

 

“Luke taught me better. Don’t think that he didn’t. I just choose not to now.”

 

He shakes his head. Pushes his own half-finished plate across to her. Waves at it with an airy ‘help yourself’ sort of gesture. Either her table manners really were so bad that she’d put him off eating entirely, or he never was really hungry to begin with. Spoiled brat.

 

“Maybe I just wanted to spend time with you?”

 

“Kriff off.”

 

She mumbles it through a mouthful of half-chewed food and Kylo has to close his eyes for a moment. Gods the man was a prick about some things.

 

“Your powers have been growing, even when they’re held back,” he says, changing the topic. “You have so much power and potential. I continue to be amazed by it.”

 

Yeah yeah, so she’s been told. Is she going to get sick if she eats all of this at once? Maybe. But he left all the good parts still on his plate. It would be a crime to let them get thrown out.

 

“Rey...”

 

She knows perfectly well what he wants. But he’s not going to get it.

 

Instead, she starts picking over his food. Meticulous in her effort to not put her mouth on any part of it where his mouth had also been. At least it’s finally making her slow down and pace herself.

 

Kylo sighs and raises his pointer finger. Makes a U-shape through the air and Rey can feel the phantom touch sweep across her back from one shoulder blade to the other.

 

She nearly chokes on her current mouthful. Stares at him with bug eyes and what she hopes is strict and forbidding judgment.

 

His smirk grows a little more wicked. Thoroughly self-entitled as he traces a figure eight next and it skims lower, edging towards her butt. She instinctively tugs the back of her shirt lower to cover the threatened area.

 

“You’d look better in black,” he muses.

 

“Fine, you’ve got my attention. Now leave me be.”

 

She hurries to finish everything on the plate while she still has the chance. Another finger joins in and she feels them settle on the small of her back. Pushing her forward toward him until she exerts what little power the Force collar allows her and shoves the sensation away.

 

“Try that again and you’ll be wearing this,” she lifts up her nearly finished plate in a clear manner of warning.

 

He smiles. It’s awkward and closed mouth but he still looks so pleased.

 

“I told you that you’re powerful. I may even have to put a stronger collar on you soon.”

 

Rey tries to step back. Pull her arm back in preparation to hurl it at this bastard’s smug face even if she knows it’ll never reach him. But now she’s rooted to the spot. Kylo holding her fixed in place so effortlessly that he doesn’t even have to try more than a simple gesture to bring her back.

 

He lays his palm flat against his knee and she collapses stiffly into the chair across from him. The plate clatters free from her now unresponsive hand and spills it remaining contents on the floor instead of her intended target.

 

“ _Let. Me. Go_.”

 

Her heartbeat starts to pick up the more she struggles against his control. Kylo’s expression softens to something almost pensive.

 

“Do better,” he order. “You can get out of this. I have faith in your power.”

 

Gods he sounds like a lunatic sometimes. Most of the time.

 

But she has no other choice than to _try_. She closes her eyes. Trying. Trying trying trying.

 

A twist of panic starts to sink into her. The Force isn’t coming to her. It could when she was alone. Barely, but it had been there. Right now though she might as well be back in her pitch dark cell for as blind as she is to it.

 

“Do I distract you that much?”

 

Her eyes scrunch tighter and she grits her teeth. Trying to tune his deep voice out while she reaches for the Force again with conviction.

 

There. Almost. She nearly has it.

 

But then it disappears.

 

“Try again.”

 

“ _Shut up!_ ”

 

“Concentrate, Rey. Your thoughts are everywhere but where they should be.”

 

As if to prove a point, or maybe _exactly_ to prove a point, the ghostly hand comes back. It brings with it the sensation of long, smooth fingers built out of nothingness. They circle along the top edge of her collar and make her breath hitch. It all seems so real she can almost feel the heat coming off from the phantom touch.

 

_Are you concentrating, Rey?_

 

He pauses, but when her connection keeps slipping further and further away, the touch returns in full force. The caress transforming into the feel of full lips running along her jaw. Hotter than before, as if he’d known that she’d noticed that added sensation.

 

“Oh gods, stop that!”

 

_This is nothing, Rey. You’re so much more than this. Conquer me. Conquer it all._

 

What a terrifying thing to say. He’s so _into_ this. Relishing her abilities vicariously.

 

The ghostly touch moves up to along her lips. She presses them together tighter at pressure of his thumb upon the seam, trying to get her to open for him.

 

She grabs, frantically. Mind going numb to anything but her memory of what the Force feels like.

 

And _t_ _here it is_.

 

Rey catches the thread. Latches onto it like a fishhook and sinks it into the flow of the Force.

 

And then she shoves that kinky bastard right out of her head. She actually moves him a little, even. Pushes him back and away enough to give herself some much needed breathing room.

 

She can’t quite handle the look of speechless awe on his face. Or how he had been caressing his own mouth while he was watching her.

 

“I hate you.”

 

How many times has she said this? She’s already lost count on her first day. But she did it. Finally. She’s left dizzy and breathless, but her head is once again hers and hers alone again.

 

“You’re _exquisite_.”

 

There’s no shortage of pride in his voice. Or open adoration in his eyes.

 

She stands up, backing away from his smile of affection, and yanks at her collar as hard as she can. She can sense the pull of the Force flowing through her now. It’s not free like it used to be, but it’s right _there_ with her. She practically chokes on it, not caring that the metal is starting to cut into the skin on the back of her neck. This is _it_. The strongest she’s felt since before he took her.

 

“Rey, you can’t take it off. I told you that already.”

 

She backs up against the far wall. Feeling the metal dig into her fingers. Her grip slips along her dampened skin.

 

“Rey, don’t,” he sounds concerned. Maybe he knows she’s hurting herself. “Stop it. You can’t take it off. You can’t- _Oh..._ ”

 

She had closed her eyes again. Putting in all her effort on her goal. And she hears his chair creak as he stands up and quickly comes to her.

 

“Maybe you can. Maybe I was wrong.”

 

His hand presses against her forehead. A gentle pop and her connection to the Force is severed again.

 

“No!” she shrieks, stomping her foot in pure an expression of pure frustration. “I almost had it! I almost fucking had it!”

 

She slaps his hand away. Pounds at his chest with her fists then stomps to the exit from his quarters when her hands start to hurt.

 

“Take me back to my cell right now,” she orders, glaring at the keypad but knowing without knowing that it will respond to his touch only.

 

“I can’t let you leave, Rey. Not from your room, but you can go back there if you really want to.”

 

Her ‘room’, not a cell. Gods he’s so delusional.

 

“I wish you wouldn’t say things like that.”

 

She closes her eyes to his sad voice. Sad, but not surprised. He moves behind her but keeps a respectful distance now.

 

“Done with assaulting me for the day?” she asks.

 

She hopes her words hurt. His sadness grows and their bond whines in sympathy to his pain.

 

“That was nothing, Rey. I didn’t mean to upset you. I was just… we’ve done so much more together.”

 

True. Awful, but true. How many times had she given in to a moment of shared ecstasy when they were safely a galaxy apart. But that was different. It wasn’t real.

 

He reaches out. The tips of his fingers finding their way to her shoulder, but then he thinks better of it before he touches her.

 

“You’ve been such a distraction for me,” he finally tells her. “My absence is starting to be noticed. It won’t be tolerated for much longer without results.”

 

His voice fades as she dips under his extended arm and steps back into the middle of his room. He sighs. Begins pacing again with his head bowed low.

 

Noticed. Tolerated. _Results_.

 

It’s obvious whom he’s talking about. And the implicit threat behind it.

 

And oh gods, he’s probably right. But it doesn’t matter because she’s going to get out of here very soon so who cares what he has to say, right? Ridiculously, he’s trying to reason with her. Kylo Ren, trying to _r_ _eason_ with her. Rey is feeling very un _reason_ able at the moment, however, so it’s time to take a weight off.

 

She puffs her chest up, filling her lungs with air to build her nerve up before she lets him have it.

 

He stops and waits for her and they’re back to being opposites. She could choose the low road or the high road now but, let’s be honest, thee never truly was a choice, was there?

 

“So what is your plan then, oh great ‘ _Commander of the First Order_ ’?” She lets the scorn be thick in her voice. “You intend to keep me locked away in here until _what_ exactly happens?”

 

He paces again, shutting her off from reading his side of the bond in increments as he quietly allows her tirade. So she continues it.

 

“This was a long time coming, Kylo. Did you plan on winning me over with all your wit and charm? You thought that you could become such good company that I just turn my back on everyone who actually matters to me and embrace our bond, then we fall in love and go at it like bunnies and have a dozen Force-sensitive little rugrats running around, all dressed in black?”

 

Kylo has never been one to be silent, but silent he is. It makes her so suspicious that she can’t resist the urge to peak inside. A featherlight strum of their connection reveals that she hurt his feelings.

 

“Aw. Poor baby. That was it, wasn’t it? You had it all figured out and now I’ve ruined the surprise.”

 

Dejection comes through now. Sharp and crisp. And then Kylo completely shuts off his end of the bond from her probing.

 

“I hadn’t thought about children.”

 

She waits for him to continue. He doesn’t. Not refuting anything else. Not the part that he thought he could win her over or that they would be inevitably be-

 

No. She can’t handle his lunacy right now. It’s too much.

 

“Kylo?”

 

He faces her fully this time. That overly expressive face of his giving every awful emotion and sentiment away. Hurt. Anger. Worry. Hope again.

 

Hope? No. Unacceptable. Gotta crush that one. Nip it in the bud.

 

“Kylo?” she repeats.

 

“What?”

 

“I will never, ever stop hating you. I don’t care if hate will keep me from ever being a Jedi. It grows more and more for you each and every day.”

 

Rey had expected petty rage. Maybe he’d lash out at her and smother her again. Instead, she senses him in her mind. Sliding around like oil and she’s so alarmed by the intimacy of the feeling that she can’t properly keep him out.

 

Quick as a sudden breeze, he leaves her back into his own space.

 

“If you truly hate me, then why didn’t you block me?”

 

And he smirks, just a little. She frowns.

 

“I would-” you asshole “if I could. If you hadn’t dragged me here when I was out and shackled me down.”

 

Chained me like an animal, but which one of us is really that? Don’t answer that question, Kylo. You don’t need to.

 

“That’s not what I meant and you know it.”

 

Ah, yes, the smirk grows. Now a full-on grin that makes him look like the perfect Darksider he aspires. He’s found a weak spot and she squirms. Reaching out with the Force and getting no further than the metal band around her neck.

 

“You could have blocked me. We both now that. You block me all the time. You’re trying to block me right now.”

 

The feeling comes back as he steps closer again. It’s an icky sensation. Like a wet tongue wriggling around her brain through her ear.

 

“Something has changed.”

 

He’s right. As horrible as it is, he’s right. But she’d hoped and prayed to whatever higher power was willing to hear her that he wouldn’t have picked up on that until she had come to terms with it by herself.

 

“You’re starting to warm up to me, aren’t you?”

 

He’s pleased. Very much so. And Rey suddenly realizes that a mischievous Kylo is when he’s at his most dangerous.

 

She tries to scoff but it comes out as more of an indignant sniff. And he steps closer then, filling up her whole field of vision with his black robes. He reaches out and she glares sidelong at his hand which hovers by her face until he drops it.

 

“You do. You feel differently about me now than you did yesterday. Why?”

 

Because a lot had happened in only one day. In just a few minutes. The revelation that she had about their connection, and _him_ by extension, has made it impossible for her to feel the same that she had when she’d woken up in the dark with her arms bound.

 

“Things changed. But they don’t mean anything.”

 

“Are you sure about that?”

 

What a miserable dinner date this night has turned out to be. In Kylo’s credit, what little of that there is, he waits patiently as she tries to collect her thoughts.

 

“I’m still planning on hurting you,” she informs him flatly.

 

“Oh?” His face softens. “Is that so? Why?”

 

“Because I detest you.”

 

He nods.

 

“So I have been told.”

 

“You’re angry all the time because you’re lazy.”

 

His eyebrows shoot up and she can just _tell_ that he wants to correct her, but he’s holding himself back.

 

Alright, fine then. Green light.

 

“You choose anger because it’s the easy way out. It’s a shortcut that lets you get from point A to B while bypassing all those nasty little things called feelings. You think that you don’t need them or they make you weak and you need to be numbed to them all.”

 

It’s not even a guess anymore. She’d felt all of that when he had been kneeling, prostrate and desperate, before her the day before. “Shall I continue?”

 

“Not if you don’t want to.”

 

Silence stretches between them. Kylo watches her and she shifts uncomfortably under his gaze. Then he backs off and fiddles with his drink glass, seeming to be as much at a loss for words as she is.

 

Alright, quiet tolerance of each other’s company is as good as it gets for them. Time to leave on a high note.

 

“I want to go back to my room now.”

 

Rey had expected him to either argue or escort her back in bitchy moodiness. Instead, he stays silent apart from the soft strumming of his fingertips against the tabletop. She’s tempted to demand that he just says whatever is on his mind. But… then he’d probably tell her, and nothing good has ever come from Kylo speaking to her.

 

He laughs softly as he follows her line of thought, drawing out what feels like Rey’s 1000th scowl of the day. Her expression only deepens when he tips his head down and she can’t help but have a sense of appreciation for his strange and unique face. He looks like his parents but he also doesn’t. It’s not the face that a monster like him should have, and this isn’t the first time she’s thought that.

 

“Keep your mask on next time.”

 

He stops plucking his fingers against the table. It’s the only outward sign he gives that he heard her.

 

She turns to leave, knowing that either he’ll escort her back to her cell himself of, with a little bit of luck, he’ll assign some weak-minded storm troopers to do the job for him.

 

Two steps and he freezes her in place again. She lets out an embarrassing squeak of surprise before collecting herself. Centering her powers and this time she can feel herself start to break free out of it almost immediately.

 

Kylo allows it. Stands up and comes over to join her while she’s still seething about him thinking that he can _allow_ her to do anything. She tries to back up and he freezes her again with a casual flick of his finger.

 

“You know what, Rey? I think I’ve figured out what _you’re_ afraid of.”

 

He catches her shoulders in both his hands, hauling her back in place front and center when she reflexively tries to squirm away from his close proximity.

 

“Aren’t you going to ask what it is?” he goads, starting to rub her shoulders in circles with his thumbs.

 

“Fuck off.”

 

His smile comes back. She really, _really_ doesn't like seeing him smile when he’s so close to her.

 

Kylo leans down and kisses her.

 

His lips are surprisingly soft and gentle and she’s too astonished to remember to sink her teeth into his conveniently positioned flesh.

 

It’s… sweet. She doesn’t hate it.

 

No. She absolutely hates it. This is the worst thing that’s ever happened to her.

 

He pulls away with the cockiest grin she could ever imagined on his infuriatingly handsome face.

 

She slaps him. Hard.

 

It’s a cliché of a move, something better suited to feisty heroines in a classic romance movie, but it carries her point across.

 

“How _dare_ you?!” she growls, raising her hand to strike him again.

 

He catches it mid-air and presses his lips to it. Cradles it against his face and closes his eyes as she curls her fingers under to sink her nails into his skin.

 

“Let go of me!”

 

“No.”

 

She claws him, scratching along the length of his cheek while palming at his chest with her free hand and trying to push away. Kylo makes a little contented kitten sigh that tickles against her stinging palm and she abruptly stops.

 

“Oh fuck, don’t tell me that you like that?”

 

Oh you sick fuck. _Sick sick fuck._

 

He opens his eyes. Contentment practically radiates off him. She grunts and tries to yank her hand away from the lunatic pervert who has her so perfectly in his grasp, but he only concedes to let it drop between them while still keeping it tightly clutched in his own.

 

“Come now, Rey,” he whispers. “You can’t tell me that you didn’t feel anything. I can hear how much your heart is racing.”

 

She assumed it was their damnable ‘connection’ that lets him know that for a certainty. But then he reached out to cradle her heart through her chest with his free hand and she immediately slapped him away for daring to go for a titty-cup.

 

It was Kylo’s turn to feel self-conscious, apparently. His pale-beyond face flushes red as he realizes what she thinks he’s doing.

 

“My apologies,” he murmurs. Staring at her hand in his before he lets go with a huff of reluctance and allows Rey to retreat backwards until her back is against the far wall.

 

“Don’t you ever do that again,” she warns, trying to collect herself. It’s just a kiss, girl, get it together.

 

There’s nothing about his angled head or sidelong cast to his eyes that can lead her to believe that he’s not, in fact, totally planning on doing it again.

 

The dark look he gives her sends a shiver along their bond despite her protests. This is all so wrong. It’s making her all messed up in her head . Making her think things that she really can’t allow herself to.

 

“Well I couldn’t let you leave here not being furious with me, could I?” he offers by way of an explanation. “I think I would badly feel cheated if I’d missed an opportunity to be abused by your Lightsider temper again.”

 

“You- _You..._ ”

 

She can’t finish that sentence without proving him right. Can’t smack that stupidly pleased smirk off his face without breaking her convictions. All she _can_ do is seethe in inner rage, baring her teeth to him and trying not to choke on her own vitriol.

 

Kylo leans down and kisses her again.

 

He doesn’t go for the lips this time, but instead presses a delicate peck along the bridge of her nose.

 

“Keep that up and you’re going to get wrinkles,” he coos, blowing against her now damp skin as he pulls away.

 

The temptation to use the Force to throw him across the room is strong. But she can barely use it to break out of a wrist hold, and when she even tries to tap into it when he’s this close all she can sense is their connection. Their blissed out, exalting to the skies connection.

 

Better not even go near that _Thing_ right now, or heaven help her what it will make her do.

 

“Rey...”

 

Rey can’t stand a lot of things right now. From the strumming of her traitorous hormones through her veins to her rapidly accelerating pulse, but especially not to the reverent way he says her name. Almost moans it, so low and worshipfully. All she can do is shake her head to dispel the memory of it from existence.

 

“Please.”

 

He says it, she only thinks it. So he steps forward and wraps her in his arms. It could be a sweet embrace if it weren’t for how oppressively he holds her. Presses her face against his chest and she starts to tremble.

 

So many thing unresolved between them, and they’re all coming to a head. She wants to run and hide, but he won’t-

 

“No. Never. I’m right here with you, Rey.”

 

She can feel it too. Guess that twisted part of their bond goes both ways, because she can feel every part of his longing for her. Every time he laid awake at night and begged the universe to bring her to him. Every time he took himself in hand and thought about her and only her.

 

Her breath catches.

 

“Gods...” she whispers weakly. Not fighting it as he cradles her face and pulls it close to his. His breath warms her skin but this time he waits for her to close the distance.

 

She swallows awkwardly the lump in her throat only heightened by his touch on her skin. But she won’t kiss him again. Ever. She refuses to.

 

He growls low. Pushes his hips against her stomach. Lets her feel exactly-

 

Sweet kriffing fuck, just what is it that he’s working with here?! She’s never laid with a man, but she’s seen enough to know what to typically expect. What she’s feeling against her from her stomach and hip is most certainty _not_ typical.

 

He’s rock hard. Okay… well, yes… There’s that. But also just freaking enormous and…

 

Strangely shaped. Oddly rounded and domed almost.

 

Kylo’s face turns from blushing to beet red as he follows along with her detailed analysis of his junk. That’s when it hits her.

 

“Kylo,” she huffs, lips a ghost’s touch away from his own, “are you _wearing a cup?_ ”

 

His face couldn’t become any redder. And yet it does.

 

“Um...” he stammers, the great Kylo Ren finally at a loss for words. “I thought it would be a- after what happened last time-”

 

“Get out.”

 

Get out right now, you dirty sex pervert.

 

“But this is _my_ room, Rey. You can’t just throw me out.”

 

“I can and I am. Now get out and never come back.”

 

His sudden mortification had made his arms go slack enough that she can yank them off her and step away. Then she gestures at the door like an owner disciplining a naughty pet.

 

“Outside. Now.”

 

He blinks.

 

“I thought… I thought we were having a moment.”

 

It’s such a weak and feeble argument. What a stupid, awkward boy. Truly all he knows is how to fuck things up.

 

“We _were_ having a moment. And then you ruined it by being you. Now you’ll just have to live with that.”

 

If Rey’s eyes aren’t deceiving her, Kylo actually hangs his head in shame. Then he stomps over to the door and opens it via the keypad, gesturing her to step out with a defeated sweep of his arm.

 

And the walk back to her cell is as silent as it is awkward.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whew, only two chapters left to go now! Light at the end of the tunnel. I’m going to continue this series with a 1-shot at first then hopefully it will segue into a much longer multi-chapter fic. Got a lot of other projects and challenges I’m hoping to tackle in the next few months so it’s going to be a great weight off to have at least one of them complete.
> 
> Next (to last) chapter: Rey’s big day finally arrives. Time to shine, future Jedi, time to shine.


	6. Proper Protocols for Pampering Your Prisoner

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rey gets a bath. Kylo gets kinky. Both of them are totally, secretly getting something out of this.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wait, what? Random bonus interlude chapter so soon after the last? I wasn’t planning on writing this but chapter at all but then this story had hit a milestone of 100 subscribers and last time that happened with Under Skies You Could Drown In I’d celebrated the occasion with a light and fluffy bonus chapter.  
> But light and fluffy with this fic… Nope. Not gonna happen with these two. So a pervy bathing scene is the gonna have to do instead.

Rey really wants to know who the hell had taught her jailer his unique interpretation of “romance”.

 

Over the course of the last half hour, Kylo had done everything his twisted mind could come up with to entice her. Entice her to what? The dark side? Straddling various body parts of his? Voluntarily tolerating his company?

 

Maybe no one truly knows what his plan was, least of all himself. But what had become painfully clear was that Kylo was no longer content to just let her sit and steam in abject boredom anymore. Apparently, while Rey had been having a relation about his true nature, he’d come to a conclusion about her own progress into his clutches.

 

It hadn’t been going quick enough. In Rey’s mind it hadn’t been going at all, but trust her madman dungeon keeper to have an entirely different take on the recent events.

 

Kylo had gotten her morning off to an early and highly negative start. He’d woken her up by sitting there again. Staring at her silently until her mental pervert alarms went off and startled her into a hasty awakening. She’d glared at him, turned onto her side so she wouldn't have to look at him, and tried to go back to bed.

 

Then he’d attempted to give her a backrub which she’d resolutely ignored. Ignored until his hands started circling too far south had she’d flown out of bed with a snarling, hurling a mix of insults and whatever loose objects were closest at hand.

 

That had been the high point of their morning together.

 

Breakfast had consisted of a mix of hostile and icy silence on her part as she tried to ignore him completely. Which was rather challenging considering the look of pure longing he gave her mouth as she licked the icing off her cinnamon role or devoured a peach with her bare hands since he’d wisely decided to keep any cutting implements out of the picture.

 

Somebody sure was thirsty this morning. She’d thought about taunting him with that, with his _weakness_ , but… if her restless and frustrating night’s sleep before had been any indicator of his emotional state, maybe it might be best not to poke into _that_ topic too much.

 

Finally woken and sated, Rey was sick of his obsessive presence already so she wasted no time in throwing him out of her room. Or attempting to. So far he’d been a pretty good boy about fucking off when she told him to, but this time he’d dug his heels in.

 

“You stink. You need to take those reeking clothes of so I can have them properly cleaned.”

 

Oh gods, this again?

 

“No,” she mumbles, debating whether to go for the cup of caf he brought her or not.

 

“You don’t have a say in this.”

 

Now _that_ generates an eyeroll.

 

“You can’t control how I look, Kylo. It’s creepy and pretty obnoxious of you to even try.”

 

“As a prisoner, you’re su-”

 

“Yep. Back to being your prisoner again. That sure didn’t take long.”

 

He telegraphs slamming his hand down on the table in advance and she picks the cup up before it gets spilled all over her legs.

 

“Fine, Drama Queen. I’ll take another sonic shower once you go away.”

 

He scoffs. “Sonic- that device is hardly a substitute for a real bath.”

 

Debatable. And a lot better than what she used to have.

 

“Well, it’s all I’ve got in my _prison cell_ , so… tough shit.”

 

“I have a proper bath in my room.”

 

Rey initially assumes that he was joking. But when she looks up at him over the rim of her steaming black beverage, she starts to get a sinking feeling in her stomach.

 

“Kylo… you’re not-”

 

“You’re going to be difficult about this, aren’t you Rey?”

 

She sighs. Sets down her drink and slides her chair back and away from the table. Why does everything have to always be so hard between them? Honestly?

 

“I think you already know the answer to that.”

 

And Rey gets the oddest feeling that Kylo is mentally cracking his knuckles.

 

*

 

Kylo had finally given up on convincing her to go willingly with him and proceeded to pick her up and haul her over his shoulder as he stomped down the short distance to his own private quarters.

 

“Trying to keep me close for easy access?” she snarls.

 

A highly insulted feeling washes over her and she realizes that he must have increased the armor over his torso because all her spirited kicks and punches weren’t even winding him.

 

At least the hallways are clear, though. It would have been too embarrassing if any of the idiotic First Order minions were treated to the spectacle they were making. This must be a smaller ship because, on a large cruiser, prying eyes would never be far away no matter how remote the prison cell he’d been keeping her in was.

 

Opening the door to his suite is a struggle and she is hell bent on not making it any easier. She switches strategies from kicking and clawing to curing herself around his neck and trying to throttle him with her thighs.

 

 _That_ gets a reaction from him, at least. As soon as he opens the door and none too gently wrenches her hands free of the framethat she had tried to cling to, and he throws her flat on her butt in the center of his floor.

 

“Bath. Now.” He repeats her condescending tone and gesture from the day before as he points at a door on the far side the room.

 

“Fuck off.”

 

Her ass hurts, thanks a lot jerk. She almost wants to rub it soothingly but that would be kind of weird with him watching her like an angry, short-tempered hawk.

 

His gloved hands flex and close in tight fists. She can see her slumping figure reflected in his mask. From his angle, it almost looks like she’s cowering before him.

 

She immediately jumps back to her feet, standing straight to her full height despite the sore protests from her heinie.

 

Kylo sighs when she overlooks his outstretched offer of assistance. She crosses her arms, ready to attempt a childish staredown with her masked tormentor.

 

His hands immediately move to the opening mechanism on his helmet ans she rolls her eyes.

 

“Get out of my head or else.” She knows it’s an empty threat, but whatever. “And take me back too my room. And keep your damn mask on so I don’t have to look at your kriffing face.”

 

His kriffing, pretty face that softens at the edges when he casually disobeys her order.

 

“No Rey, it doesn’t work like that. I will do what I want when I want to. _You_ will do what I want when I want you to.”

 

 _Oh ho_ … is that how it is? Where the hell does he get off? Yeah okay, poor choice of words since she knows exactly how he like it but-

 

He clears his throat and raises an eyebrow. Rey can’t stop herself from blushing when she realizes she was projecting a vivid sensory memory of when she’d thought she was contemplating his potential erection the night before.

 

“Rey,” his voice is a touch more strained than the annoyed growl he had before, “you will get into the bathroom and clean up. That is not a request.”

 

The fool in front of her truly doesn’t seem to realize that all his bossing her around is going to have the exact opposite effect of making her submit to his will. Maybe he’s just too used to getting his way all the time? Well then, it’s time for a change of pace.

 

“Nope, not gonna happen.”

 

It’s not that she doesn’t want to take a nice long bath and truly get cleaned up. It’s not about that at all.

 

Kylo’s jaw trembles. His nostrils flare as he forces in a deep breath to try and calm himself down. Is it _really_ just that easy to rile him up like this?

 

Hmm… good to know. Some fun may be in order soon.

 

Soon doesn’t come fast enough, however. Because the moment Rey’s mind starts formulating all the different ways she can defy him, his willpower snaps and he lunges for her. She yelps, leaping back, and they both tumble to the floor as he tries to grab hold of her.

 

She kicks and scratches and bites as they wrestle about in an undignified tangle of limbs, knocking occasional loose pieces of furnishings over which seems to annoy him only slightly less than the rare bits of damage she manages to score to his bare face.

 

He wins out, inevitably. Because he’s bigger and stronger and not so full of spite as to give up proper hand to hand strategy.

 

Then he has her pinned underneath him in a position that could be very sexual if it weren’t for how deeply ruffled and annoyed both of them were with each other at that moment.

 

“Get off.” Get off and fuck off.

 

Sometimes when she swears at him in her head, he smiles. This time his eyes narrow to little more than hostile slits.

 

He scoops her up into his arms, managing to both support her weight and rise to her feet in one effortless move. He must have used the Force to do that, and it reminds her again of just how much of a cruel bastard he is.

 

“Again with the bridal carry? What the fuck is wrong with you?”

 

Rey has to wheeze it out because, as sweet and romantic as his favorite abduction position may look on the outside, this time he’s holding her so tightly she can feel bruisesthreatening to form under his iron grip.

 

Kylo slams his hand against the access panel to his bathroom then kicks the door open the rest of the way when it’s moving too slow. That sudden burst of aggression finally quiets Rey squirming and she tightens against him, readying herself for whatever unknown assault he has planned next.

 

He drops her in the center of the room with a frustrated grunt. She lands lightly on her feet this time, and back against the far wall to watch him.

 

“I’m not getting in there,” she says when he turns on the faucet tot the bathtub with a flick of the Force then pulls off one of his gloves.

 

He pauses. Grits and bares his teeth before recovering. Sticks his hand under the water to check the temperature before turning his attention back to her.

 

“I mean it, Kylo. I’m not getting in there.”

 

Maybe repeating herself will change his mind and make him drop whatever this latest-

 

“Rey,” he huffs her name. Reaches toward her and she can feel phantom tendrils of the Force start to pull for a moment before he checks himself. Kylo in full anger is terrifying enough. Kylo trying to repress his anger is even worse because it means that he’s now just a ticking time bomb with a history of very poor self control.

 

“I’ll… I’ll take another shower back in my cell,” she offers. It’s not much of a compromise, since she’d already suggested it, but maybe it will be enough. “Not that I need to, of course, but if you’re going to be such a prick about it then-”

 

“Take off your clothes,” he stops both her and the water at the same time. The room starts to fill with steam. Rey swallows and eyes the distance between her current wall-press and the door. She’d have to get through him first.

 

“No.”

 

Her voice doesn’t sound nearly as courageous anymore.

 

His gaze hardens. He steps toward her. She cringes back but she’s already against the far wall and there’s no place left for her to run.

 

Just as he reaches for the first button of her tunic, she catches his hand and stops him from forcibly undressing her.

 

He raises an eyebrow. Waiting.

 

“The water’s too hot!”

 

It’s the only excuse she can think of.

 

“It’s not. You’ll be fine.”

 

She swallows. Feels his fingers flex against her palm. There really is no choice in this, is there?

 

“Yes there is, Rey. You can do this for yourself like a reasonable, rational adult, or I can do it for you. Either way you’re getting in that goddamn tub so I don’t have to smell your stinking clothes one second longer.”

 

She wants to protest all of that. And maybe she’s still used to smelling like a dust-covered bantha who was left out in the sun for too long, but she doesn’t think she’s all _that_ bad. Sort of.

 

“You are, now get in.”

 

He pulls his hand free and takes a step back. Crosses his arms and waits. She can feel her cheeks betraying her again.

 

“Turn around.”

 

“So you can attack me when my back is turned? Hardly.”

 

He waits. She waits. He taps his foot in annoyance. She senses his gossamer threads of patience beginning to thin out.

 

“What would your mother say?”

 

She blurts it out without thinking about it. Kylo seems as taken aback as she is. His scarred eye twitches rapidly before he can control it.

 

“I beg your-”

 

“What would your mother say about you dragging me here and then watching me take my clothes off? This isn’t the right way for anyone to behave.”

 

He opens his mouth, about to retort. Then leaves it like that. Seeming to struggle with finding the right words.

 

“I’ve seen a lot already, Rey,” is what he settles on. Referencing all the times they’d… well, Force Bonds have no sense of shame, apparently. Unreasonably she’d hoped that had all been one-sided and he hadn’t been watching her like she had been him.

 

He turns his head to the side. Finally feeling a little of her mutual embarrassment.When he swallows, she watches his Adam’s apple bob up and down.

 

And he turns half-way to the cabinet above his sink and pulls out a few items that he pockets. Presumably taking away anything that he thinks she could make an effective weapon out of.

 

“I will give you exactly one minute. If I don’t hear you splashing in the water at the end of that I’m going to come right back in here and sink you under the surface myself.”

 

With that ominously vague threat, Kylo turns on his heel and stomps off. The door slides shut behind him and, a few seconds later, she hears the electronic beeps of the door lock being activated from the outside.

 

Now that no one’s looking, she lifts an arm over her head and sniffs under the armpit. Meh. Not too bad at all. Only kind of stinky. He’s just being a prick.

 

Rey turns her attentions back to the still-steaming bathtub. She’d lie if she didn’t think it looked inviting.

 

So…Guess she might as well get on with it then.

 

*

 

While she was in the tub, Kylo had been meditating.

 

Meditating poorly, but the intention was there. She could sense his desire to calm himself down through their bond. When they were this close physically, it could be quite easy to read between the lines of his psyche.

 

He was angry, upset, frustrated, and didn’t want to scare her. He’d picked up on frightening her earlier when he’s kicked the door open and he actually felt guilty about that. Not much, granted, but a little.

 

Maybe that’s why she reluctantly stripped off and dipped a toe into the water: to reward him with a tiny show of compliance from her side for attempting to be a human being.

 

And damnit, the water was really nice. When was the last time she’d taken a hot bath? She can’t even remember, though there was an ice cold waterfall on Ahch-To that she’d been using instead and while it wasn’t exactly pleasant it was a tremendous step up from sonic showers or sand bath.

 

This, though, _this_ is fantastic.

 

Rey sighs as she sinks down into it. Wincing slightly as the hot water prickles along her skin until she adjusts to it.

 

In the back of her mind, Kylo’s focus on his mediation stance slips.

 

Oh, so he’s watching her, is he? She should have guessed. He’s probably justifying it by telling himself that he needs to make sure she doesn’t find a way to escape, somehow, but really she knows he’s just being a creeper again.

 

She sinks in all the way up to her neck. Looks with amusement at the numerous bottles of lotions and potions that decorate the edge of the tub.

 

That’s so… it’s _cute_. The big, bad Darksider is secretly so vain. Adorably vain.

 

Their Bond shifts. She can’t tell whether he likes that she just thought something positive-ish about him, or maybe he’s simply feeling self-conscious.

 

Either way, time to get to work. As lovely as this bath is, she wants to get in, get out, and get back to her cell as soon as she possibly can.

 

*

 

Wait, had Rey actually thought that she would want to leave this blissfully relaxing spa day early?

 

What a stupid notion. She hasn’t enjoyed a physical experience as much as this in… forever? Quite possibly forever.

 

The temperature of the bathwater remains steady. A consistent, even level of hot that is just on the right side of pleasurable versus too much. What a wonder of modern technology.

 

Rey dips her head back under the surface. Feels how her hair flows around her and tickles her cheeks. She’s already washed and shampooed and even, luxury of luxuries, ‘conditioned’ her hair. Now this is simply about relaxation and bliss.

 

What a time to be alive.

 

If Kylo’s inconvenienced at all by her extra long extended bathtime, he doesn’t show it. She’d felt him meditating for a while and getting rather frustrated with it. On an odd level, she can relate. Meditation sucks.

 

But then the lovely hot water had started to work its magic on her. Forcing her tired and tension-worn muscles to relax fully. She could almost fall asleep in here, that’s how tranquil she was.

 

Her serenity had seeped to him through their bond. He’d been surprised at first, but then had settled down into a quiet hum in the back of her mind. She doesn’t think she’s ever felt him be so calm.

 

It was nice.

 

Okay, it was better than nice. He’d put her through hell, so it was only fair that he cuts her a little slack and finally, _finally_ calms the fuck down for an hour or two while she relaxes. They can go back to hating each other later, but for now she’s just going to pretend that he doesn’t exist so she can enjoy the rest of her bath experience.

 

*

 

Pretending hat he doesn’t exist proves to be a grave mistake.

 

Rey had forgotten many things as she drifts in her warm cocoon of water, but she probably shouldn’t have forgotten how much Kylo hates to be ignored. Sometimes it makes him lash out and break people or things, and sometimes it makes him ‘act up’.

 

Maybe she’d let herself get too placid. Her guard had dropped and he had exercised his rarely used restraint and waited instead of pouncing on her at the first opportunity.

 

In fact, she’d nearly fallen asleep when he found a way to wake her up again. Just like this morning when he’d creeped his way into her dreams, except this time he’s not even in the same room as her when he starts…

 

_Gods Kylo, control yourself!_

 

She’s not sure if she projects the words or only her abrupt surprise. He hums, a contented little purr through their shared tether, and she scrambles to block out the bold mental image of him laying down in his bed, eyes closed and hands at work.

 

Yes the image can be blocked, thank the gods, but not the rest of the equation.

 

He’s done this to her before. Many, many times in fact. Pushed into her head his devotion while always encouraging her to give in and share in the fun.

 

Sometimes she could block him. Sometimes she chose not to. Yet another colossal mistake on her part.

 

Her willpower wavers as a fresh wave of temptation rolls through to her. It’s so different now that they’re closer. Both closer in location and, Rey will hesitantly acknowledge, closer in spirit. If that had been his plan in capturing her all along, it’s working.

 

Her reluctant acceptance of him into her mind brings with it heated flash of genuine happiness. Very much like when he’d been groveling at her feet and she hadn’t cast him aside.

 

_Are you really so desperate?_

 

She’d meant it as a gentle insult. His touch on himself falters at her question. Then picks up again as he pulls her mind closer. Rather than answer, he envelopes her. Wrapping his phantom arms around her and begging her to take part in his daydream.

 

She won’t. That’s far too far. It’s so dangerous and where would they go from there?

 

 _Anywhere_.

 

He kisses the word against her temple and opens up his mind more to her, letting her see his fantasy of her.

 

She’s surprised that it’s so _soft_. Even if he’s laying on his back in real life, in his imagination the two of them are engaged in pretty traditional missionary. Slow, romantic, sensual missionary. Full of deep kisses and a deeper rhythm.

 

He wants her to show him where to touch her. Rey has to grab on to both edges of the bathtub to keep her hands from wandering.

 

She’s just going to _watch_ , she informs him. She won’t have any part of this and is only here watching him jerk off because he gave her no other choice.

 

_Then look away. I’m not stopping you._

 

He’s… of course he’s stopping her. He has to be.

 

Her hands grip even tighter as she watches him reach between their two bodies to play with her. She tosses her head back at the sudden onslaught of sensation. Then soapy bathwater fills her nostrils and open mouth as she sinks too low, bringing her back to reality.

 

She stares at the ceiling tiles. All black, of course. Tries to count them or point and flex her feet or do anything to distract herself from the depraved act going on it the adjoining room.

 

Pretend Rey is gasping and moaning as Kylo takes his time on her. Real Rey is absurdly grateful his bathtub is just a normal bath and not one of those with the massage jets or forgetaboutit, the battle would already be over for her.

 

His strokes on himself speed up in tandem with her heartbeat. Goddamnit this is hot…

 

No. No. Rey refuses to give in to this.

 

_You’re beautiful._

 

Even in the approaching final act of his sex fantasy, he’s still trying to seduce her.

 

_You’ve already told me that._

 

She decides that she’s un-seducable.

 

_I meant it._

 

He sounds so genuine. So familiar with purring this complement into her ear as he reaches closer to the crest. How often does he?

 

 _Every time. I think about you every time_.

 

She knows it to be true. Even when he was with-

 

_No. Don’t pull away. Stay with me._

 

He is so desperate and so close. Somehow it’s beyond Rey to push him back. She presses one hand tightly over her mouth instead. The other sinks its nails into black enamel and tile.

 

When Kylo cums, it’s with his lips over hers and his hands tangled in her hair. She doesn’t join him even if his fantasy girl can’t resist. Instead, the traitorous projection of her holds on to him like a vice. Even cuddling his head to her shoulder when he comes down and collapses into his sheets.

 

The real Rey takes a deep breath and plunges her head under the surface ofthe water. Holds it there until her lungs burn and her mind realigns itself to self-preservation enough to block out what had just happened between them.

 

*

 

Rey feels very, very sulky when Kylo collects himself enough to get dressed and come to her.

 

It had been several minutes and her body had only started to calm down. The needy pulsing between her legs had ebbed to an annoying ache that was now putting her in a very bad mood.

 

Apparently her body had decided to punish her for not letting it finish what he’d started by turning her disposition back to sour and irritable.

 

And Kylo’s cocky smirk and downright swagger to his step as he walks in causes her blood pressure to spike.

 

“I hate you,” she spits, sinking down lower in the tub and wishing the lights weren’t so bright.

 

Rather than comment, her tormentor sits down on the edge of the tub next to her. Smiles at her with a look of soft affection.

 

“Would you like to go back to your room now?” he asks.

 

There’s a touch of that ugly word _hope_ in his voice. Like he ridiculously expects that his unwelcome solo performance would have changed how she felt about him. Oh yes, sweet Kylo, show me the ways of your cock…

 

“Yes. Take me back there at once so I can escape and never have to see your rifling smug-ass face ever again.”

 

He sighs. It’s a happy, content sort of sigh this time. Like nothing she says or does will ruin his afterglow.

 

Then he stands up and offers her a gentlemanly hand up out of the tub.

 

She glares at the offending digits. He’s not wearing his gloves. He wasn’t earlier, either.

 

“Wash your hands.”

 

She’d meant at the sink because that would have forced him to turn his back to her so she could jump out and wrap herself in a towel before he saw anything. An empty gesture since he’d pretty much seen every nook and cranny on the occasions she’d given in through their bond. But it would have made her feel better right now at least.

 

He sticks his hand in her bathwater instead. Swishes them around by her feet before tracing up and along her calves buried under the surface.

 

She squeaks and scoots up. Kicking out and splashing him a few times for good measure as she curls up around herself.

 

His hand follows her, finding her ass with tactical precision and goosing her until she bolts up. She tries to jump out of the tub so quickly that she slips and immediately wraps his arms around her so she doesn’t fall. His clothes are getting soaked by the close embrace and he sweeps her up and over the edge of the tub.

 

To her surprise, he allows her to immediately shove him away as soon as she catches her balance. A snap of his fingers and he has a black towel in his hand that he holds up and out of her reach when she tries to grab it from him.

 

Fine. Whatever. Letting him towel her off is hardly the most embarrassing thing that’s happened today. And he does it quickly, figuring out that if he lingers for too long on any spot she starts to squirm and debate which body part of his to strike at first.

 

When he’s done, he lifts her arms up with a soft push of the Force and wraps the towel around her body snugly. Then he steps back and the amused glimmer in his eyes lets her know that yes, in fact, she does look adorable when she’s soaking wet and full of outrage.

 

“Where are my clothes?” she hisses through tightly gritted teeth.

 

“Being washed. And failing the success of that, tossed into the trash compactor where they belong. Now come on, it’s time to go back to your room.”

 

He turns and gestures for her to follow him. She thinks he’s joking at first. That he’s not going to make her walk the hallways with damp hair and wearing nothing but a predictably black towel.

 

But that’s exactly what he had in mind. Luckily, the hallway is once again as completely clear as it was before. It’s bizarre.

 

“Where is everyone?” she asks.

 

He tips his chin to look back at her. Slows down his pace when he realizes that she was having trouble keeping up to his longer strides given her current attire. It feels quite odd to make something approaching a conversation with him.

 

“This ship has a skeleton crew at the moment. We have the lower deck entirely to ourselves right now.”

 

Rey stops her line of strategic thought before he can catch onto it.

 

“Oh?” she asks instead. “Why is that?”

 

He shrugs, pausing at the entrance to her cell and swiping his palm over the keypad.

 

“You weren’t supposed to be here. I had planned on having a different setup prepared for you, but then the opportunity on Coruscant came sooner than I’d expected.”

 

Right… _that_. Her finest moment.

 

She hurriedly steps inside, feeling an odd sense of relief at being back in her prison cell. Home sweet home.

 

Kylo stays outside, watching her thoughtfully. She realizes that he doesn’t have his mask on. So they really must be alone on this floor. Interesting.

 

“Goodnight, Rey.”

 

She frowns. It seems like an odd thing to say.

 

“Night? It’s morning, isn’t it?”

 

She has no real idea. Just had assumed. He shakes his head.

 

“It’s the middle of the night, Rey. I’ve put on a different schedule so we could spend more time together.”

 

... _Oh_. Well what is she supposed to say to that? Nothing. Nothing seems like a safe bet.

 

She shrugs. He nods, taking the cue for his dismissal.

 

*

 

Sleep is evasive but at least it’s shaping up to be a more peaceful night.

 

Kylo isn’t prowling around her subconscious and she has an optimistic feeling that maybe he won’t wake her up with the creepy stare down routine again tomorrow.

 

Tomorrow? Yeah, tomorrow. She’s really getting too complacent here. And he must have known that she was thinking about him.

  
_Rey?_

 

He whispers it into her head, making her shoulders flinch even if she knows he’s not really there.

 

“Never could stay away for long.”

 

She knows that he heard her. She’s been getting better at blocking him even with the barrier of the collar, but now she’s just too weary.

 

He recoils slightly. Hovers for a second.

 

_Sleep well._

 

She balls her sheet under her fists. Shakes her head back and forth to try and dispel the feeling of him.

 

“Stay out of my mind.”

 

A gossamer touch stroking along her hair. And then it disappears along with his faint and disagreeable presence.

 

Good grief. Everyday it’s getting worse and worse, isn’t it?

 

This has been going on for too long. It’s time for her to get out of here.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter: okay, funtime’s over. Now it’s *really* time for Rey to get out of this hard situation. Girl’s got places to be and denial and compartmentalization to do.


	7. Don’t Leave (Without Leaving Your Mark)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Where Rey tries to consult her Master for much-needed guidance, Kylo cheers on her cringey attempts at seduction, and someone gets their heart broken.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A big thanks to Theauthorformallyknownashobbitbabe for giving me inspiration for this chapter with her feedback last time. I originally had a somewhat different escape plan for Rey in mind, but her suggestion of just having Rey seduce Kylo into distraction is a hell of a lot funnier.
> 
> And I know that this chapter was stupidly long. Apparently I’m really not good at writing short. Next one in the series I’ll try to make that a priority.

Rey needs Luke. Desperately.

 

She needs her Master’s guidance on how to proceed. This slippery and rapidly descending moral slope she has found herself on is threatening to ruin everything. Kylo, their bond, her own twisted and tangled feelings… it’s all far too much for her to try and take on her own.

 

Luke would know what to do. Luke knows everything. He won’t be happy with her, but he will guide her through this. Maybe he can even fix what’s wrong with her?

 

Her master had saved the universe, after all. Like, the whole place. All of it. He can help her escape a dumb piece of metal on her neck. Then, once she’s free, he surely can help her come to terms with her lunatic other half.

 

Maybe he can even help her bring him back?

 

That… that thought is dangerous. Talk about jumping ahead, Rey. Silly girl, you’re still held captive by a madman and already you’re picturing what he’d look like in another color…

 

Just what the hell has this bond done to her? She’s in terrible danger of losing herself and it’s been less than a week.

 

Besides, it’s not like she’s going to get any sleep tonight anyhow, with how her head is spinning and her soul feels like it’s trying to transform.

 

She must find a way to reach her master. No one ever said it was going to be easy.

 

*

 

How often has Rey bitched that meditation is awful? One time too few, because no matter how much she needs it, she still loathes it.

 

There are certain shortcuts that she’s learned. Learned mostly just to be able to give her master a glowing report card and make him proud of her development, but they still count. Progress is progress. And looking within is made so much easier when she’s in her dark little cell. No distractions. Only peace and focus.

 

Just peace.

 

There’s only peace.

 

The peace of her own body at rest. Calm, level, controlled. The peace in the sounds of her own heartbeat.

 

And now there’s another heartbeat in the distance too. _His_ and it was always there, she just refused to hear it until now.

 

They truly are tied together, aren’t they?

 

She had been digging her nails into are thighs. She’s really, really bad at being calm, especially when it comes to him.

 

But she stills again. Forces herself to relax and hear as much as she feels. The soft, hollow sound of the air in the pipes above her. The rushing of water, too, though further away. Outside of her cell, actually. She can see it. The corridor she’s been down several times before. The lights are on out there. Her cell is mostly dark. Kylo had left her with that one tiny light in the corner. A nightlight for a small, frightened child or maybe a symbol of the dawning change in her head.

 

No. No distractions. She’s making progress. How much further can she reach before the collar stops her?

 

Honestly, Rey is surprised that it’s let her get this far. Doubly surprised that it’s coming so easily to her. Well then...

 

First, she’s going to reach out to Luke. Let him know that she’s alive but in terrible jeopardy. Then, after that, it’s time to get out. Find a way to get this collar off and flee before this gets any worse.

 

Rey flexes. Pushing her limited connection to the Force out and away from her. Visualizing it like a solar flare arching from her and through the ship and into the beyond.

 

It works. It’s actually working.

 

She can see the mid-sized cruiser she’s on from the outside. See the moon it’s orbiting, see the hangar on the bottom level below her. No ships are going in and out, exactly like Kylo said. With growing focus, she can even see the glow of all the different life energy that melds together from her distant birds-eye view.

 

_Master?_

 

She throws the thought out into the Force. Trusting that Luke in his great power will be able to catch it. A sharp pinch forms in her mind and doesn’t let up until she pulls back and redirects her struggle. It’s a hard thing to project like this even without a repression collar. It’s hurting her but she feels like it’s still within the realm of possibility.

 

Hope. She has hope. That ugly and all-important thing.

 

Her hope is rewarded with a returning pulse.

 

Rey doesn’t know where she, but Luke’s force signature is unique to the galaxy. It calls out to her, beckoning her to find it. All she needs is to make the connection is a single second. Just one second to send her message.

 

She refocuses. Thinks of nothing else but the task at hand.

 

She gets more than what she’d dreamed of. Her connection to the Force starts to hone in on her Master’s location like a glowing beacon.

 

But did she really think it would be that easy?

 

No. It wouldn’t be.

 

It _shouldn’t_ be.

 

Rey’s eyes snap open. Now she has to work to _sever_ her connection, instead of the other way around. Kylo’s presence clings in her mind, revealing itself and all the while trying to force her to continue.

 

_You’re a fucking soulless piece of work, you know that?_

 

She feels him cringe as she spits the accusation at him. Any sense of relaxation she might have felt disappears in an instant as cold fury rising in her blood.

 

_Rey, I-_

 

_I fucking hate you. I hate you all over again, you low-down, dirty, duplicitous-_

 

Kylo cuts her off. Good. She had run out of adjectives to properly describe how she felt about him days ago. Now she would have had to repeat herself to get back at him for the trick that he’d tried to pull over her.

 

And to think that he actually thought he could get away with that? That he could ‘allow’ her to access the Force and use it to betray her own master?

 

_Nice try, asshole. You don’t get to allow me to do shit._

 

She sends her anger at him. Shoving it through their bond and ignoring that it hurts her as well. Kylo is pacing in his room. He wants to come to her. She knows that he does, but he’s also nervous. There’s something on his mind.

 

He should be nervous. He should be fucking terrified of her. Trying to pull a nasty little stunt like that...

 

Then he stops pacing and closes his eyes. His presence washes over her mind again as he feels her feeling him.

 

And he stares at the floor, scuffing at it with the tip of his boot, as he thinks about something he’s not letting her be privy to.

 

Finally, he speaks, but he won’t look up. Is it guilt he’s trying to hide from her or something else?

 

_Rey? You’re magnificent._

 

Her spine straightens and her gaze flicks between the door to her cell and the corner of it that leads through layers of metal and wiring to where he is.

 

He’s complimenting her. Again. The _nerve_. You’d think that he’d have learned better by now.

 

Rey narrows her eyes and remains silent, but she can _hear_ his feelings rising up in him. The way his chest swells and breath shortens as he builds himself up to some sort of grandiose expression.

 

Kylo Ren and emotions are never a good idea. It must run in the family, she muses, Skywalkers always being so extra.

 

Time to nip that glow building up inside him in the bud before he says or does something thatmakes her feel very uncomfortable.

 

_Kylo?_

 

She breaks her long silence with a mental growl. A spike of interest flashes through their bond in reply.

 

_Damnit Kylo,we keeping going round and round in circles, this is getting us nowhere._

 

The connection between them hums with his rising anticipation. Rey can feel her brows draw together into a deep frown even if she’s not entirely sure why.

 

_Oh Rey…_

 

He croons it to her. Purrs it and Rey blushes as she tries to keep the worst of her sudden fluster from him.

 

And he laughs. It echoes in her head and amplifies her embarrassment. She feels exactly like they’re in the same room, even if they aren’t. She’s already sick of him, she’s thoroughly annoyed, and she’s slightly and irrationally turned on. In short, it’s the authentic Kylo Ren experience.

 

_Kylo… Get your fucking ass over here right now._

 

He’s already half way out the door before he seems to remember that he’s not wearing his mask. He sends it flying into his hand with a flick of the Force.

 

She tries to catch his emotions, but all Rey can feel from him is that he just can’t get to her fast enough.

 

*

 

“I’m going to seduce you, Kylo. Seduce you and overpower you and kick your twisted sick messed up self into another galaxy.”

 

Her highly amused and bright-eyed bondmate listens intently to her words. If he’s swayed by the conviction of her threat, he gives no outside appearance of it. And he still looms over her no matter how straight and tall she tries to stand, godsdamnit.

 

She glares at him. Daring him to mock her.

 

He doesn’t, but she sees his fingers twitch. He wants to touch her.

 

“Don’t even think about it. You haven't earned the right to touch me. You don’t even have the right to look at me. I’m revoking all your privileges.”

 

His smile widens and he tucks his hands into his back pockets to stop them from giving too much away.

 

“Rey-”

 

“Down. Eyes on the floor. You’re forbidden from looking at me.”

 

Kylo pulls his brows together. She’s quite sure that he’s trying to keep himself from breaking out laughing, but he obediently tips his head down and stares at her knees. At least he’d had the decency to give her back her old clothes after washing them. If he’d insisted on confiscating them and making her wear all black like he’d threatened to, they’d be having a very different conversation right now.

 

“Okay, now what?” he asks.

 

“Now what, what?”

 

Goodness, have they reached the ‘throwing the unwelcome pervert out of her cell’ stage of her day already?

 

He shakes his head, hearing every word of her thoughts. She stomps forward, filled with indignant irritation that he finds her anger amusing.

 

“Rey,” he starts to say. Looking up then back down again when she glares at points at the space between their feet. “How are you supposed to seduce me when I can’t look at you?”

 

Unfortunately for her next big plan, Rey has no idea how to seduce someone. But he’s probably right. Unless she can talk him into playing something like Erotic Simon Says in the dark, she’s going to have to tolerate him gawking at her.

 

“Fine. I hate you.”

 

He doesn’t look like he believes her. She’ll show him.

 

“You’re beautiful,” he counters.

 

She rolls her eyes. What a dumbshit. Can’t he just shut up and be seduced in silence like a good boy?

 

“Shall I sit down?” he asks, attempting and mostly failing to compose himself. “I wouldn’t want to miss a moment of your Grand Seduction.”

 

Before she can tell him exactly what to put in his where, he pushes past her and flops down on the edge of her bed. Crosses his legs and gets comfortable.

 

She narrows her eyes. Buying herself time and starting to feel more and more like an idiot for coming up with this ‘plan’.

 

“Go on then,” he gestures up and down at her. “Go ahead and seduce me.”

 

“You don’t think I can?”

 

His smile returns. “Oh Rey, I _know_ you can. I know that you’ve got it in you, so let’s see it.”

 

“Kriff you’re an ass.”

 

He shrugs. Leans back supports himself on one elbow while toying with her bedspread with his free hand.

 

Rey swallows, suddenly feeling terribly unsure but it’s too late to back out now. If she did, it would admit a weakness and that’s absolutely unacceptable.

 

“Here. Fine then. Get ready.”

 

She grabs the edge of her top. Takes a deep breath. Kylo’s eyes light up and he nods at her encouragingly.

 

Unceremoniously she yanks the garment over her head. She’s still in her fitted undershirt, but even this feels like too much exposed skin to be safe around him.

 

He snorts at that thought.

 

“Perhaps if you’d caught me a decade ago this might have been enough to,” he pauses to clear his throat, “to ‘seduce me’, but now? Try harder.”

 

She crosses her arms over her half-exposed chest and her foot stomps itself in sympathy of her frustration. Should she do a sexy dance or something like that now? Rey doesn’t feel sexy. Not even remotely. Perhaps she should insult him some more. That certainly seemed to get him going in the past.

 

“You’re doing great, Rey. If all that,” he gestures at her again, “if that’s a preview of what’s to come, this is going to be one hell of a seduction. No man alive could resist your adorable little scowling face.”

 

Rey growls as she wads her shirt up and hurls it at him. He catches it before it can smack him right in his obnoxiously pleased smirk. He carefully refolds it and places it down next to him then looks back up. Cocks his head and waits for her.

 

“Fine then,”she snaps. “You know what? You’re doing it wrong, not me. You’re the one who doesn’t know how to be seduced.”

 

As if there was any doubt that she looked as childish as she felt, Kylo breaks out laughing. Tries to stop himself when he sees how enraged and red-faced she becomes, but then fighting it just seems to make it worse. He starts snorting, trying to mask it as a coughing fit, and he’s so bowled over with barely restrained mirth that Rey can’t tolerate it for another nanosecond.

 

She stomps over to him and kicks him right in his shin. It breaks his self control immediately and he folds again, snorting, chuckling, and stands up to reach for her. Trying to pull her into his arms as he shakes with now uncontrollable laughter.

 

What Rey should have done at that moment, and what she’ll bitterly regret and be unable to explain later, is take advantage of her bondmate’s idiotic distraction. He was practically leaning on her for support, for kriffssake. Silver platter woman. Knee to nuts again, nails to eyes, some sort of blow to throat. All of those would have been fabulous ideas to secure her escape.

 

Instead, Rey is offended. Apparently she’s not sexy enough to seduce anyone. Not that she’d ever really tried before, but a girl’s still got an ego to fill.

 

“You’re sexy, Rey,” Kylo huffs, finally pulling himself together enough to retain half verticality. “So sexy. A goddess of sex. You have it in your DNA. You exude sex everywhere you go, even now.”

 

Rey scowls back, careful to keep her nose smooth so he doesn’t have an excuse to tease her about that on top of everything else. And just what the hell did he mean by ‘ _even now’_?

 

“You’re mocking me.”

 

He shrugs. Holds up two fingers pinched tightly together. “Maybe just a bit. Just a tiny bit.”

 

Irritation flares brightly in her. She shoves hard against his chest, and he allows himself to be pushed to the edge of the bed. When his knees hit it, she pushes again and he obediently sits. Leans back a bit on his elbows and gives her a highly mischievous smirk.

 

Their new positioning makes him uncomfortably at eye level with her chest. She has to to fight the urge to squirm or fidget.

 

“When you blush, your freckles turn darker.”

 

She glances down, seeing how her neck and chest and shoulders have a decidedly pinkish hue even under the harsh overhead lighting. Her nipples are hard, too, but that his fault for making her room so cold.

 

“How angry would you be if I offered to warm you up?”

 

He asks it casually, almost innocently. It makes her even more embarrassed which, in turn, makes her angrier.

 

“Shut up. I’m the one that’s supposed to be seducing you, not the other way round. Now stop talking and pay attention.”

 

“I am, Rey. Believe me that I am.”

 

He smiles wider and she watches his eyes skim from one of her cheeks to the other. Her freckles. Damnit. Now she has a new thing to worry about.

 

Ironically, alcohol was the cause of this whole travesty, but it also might be the one and only thing that can get her out of it. Because she can see no other way that she’ll get through her whole ‘seduction’ idea.

 

And it had been _her_ idea after all. Another horrible, dreadful, poorly thought out bad decision to add to the list.

 

“You’re so pretty, Rey,” Kylo encourages. “You look beautiful, don’t overthink it.”

 

Pretty? Beautiful? Not sexy? Fuck him. What an asshole.

 

“Kylo...” Rey wants to make his name hurt.

 

He reaches out to catch her hands before they can slap him. He tugs softly, pulling Rey down to sit next to him. She half fights him every step of the way. He moves to kneel next to her, bringing himself to a lower level than hers in a show of contrition.

 

“What do you want from me?” she asks in a huff.

 

He pretends to think about it deeply. Rubs her knee in circles with his other hand. Then he looks up and his smile is still there but muted.

 

“For us to get to know each other better.”

 

She narrows her eyes.

 

“I’m not having sex with you, Kylo. Ever. Get that through your head right now.”

 

He looks down. Watches how his hand leaves a fading imprint on her clothes even when he barely squeezes her.

 

“I’ve never said anything about that, Rey. You’ve got a smutty mind for a lightsider. You do now that the Jedi have to be celibate, right? Or did Skywalker leave that part out of your orientation?”

 

He just loves to make it seem like Luke’s failing her, doesn’t he? In truth it’s completely the other way around. Rey is the one failing in her convictions. Her resolve slipping away further and further to the point that, when Kylo wets his lips with his tongue for a moment, it’s all she can look at.

 

He wants her to kiss him. She wants him to kiss her. Because it’s part of her seduction. The angry striptease apparently didn’t do the trick, so maybe she has to let this get more physical first?

 

She leans forward. Pouting. He takes the hint.

 

Kylo’s lips are soft against hers. She always assumed her would devour her like wildfire, but for the second time in two days he’s proving her wrong. The kiss he gives her is slow and careful. Pressing his mouth to hers again and again in different ways as if to see what he likes the best.

 

She reluctantly opens for him when he nips her bottom lip. His tongue teases at hers and that’s when she pulls away. Frowning, she grips his chin to hold him in place as she regards his now swollen mouth with skepticism. Then she leans forward once more and runs the tip of her tongue along the full length of his lower lip.

 

He exhales softly. Pulls away and gives her an uncertain look.

 

“What was that?” he asks.

 

She does it again. Swiping his mouth with her tongue but not pushing inside. More or less lapping at him.

 

“Rey?”

 

“I’m seeing if you taste like another woman.”

 

Kylo’s eyes widen and his next breath falters, suddenly too startled by her words to remember to want to kiss her again.

 

“Rey, I-”

 

She leans up again and sinks her teeth sharply into his lower lip. Silencing him from whatever stupid and messy thing he was about to say.

 

And no, he doesn’t in fact taste like another woman. But she just had to make sure.

 

Accepted now, despite being the disloyal and disobedient bad boy that he is, Kylo regains his confidence as quickly as he does his libido. He tangles his fingers into her hair with one hand and pulls her flush to his chest with the other. Squeezing her until she lets go of his lip and he can all but smother her with kisses.

 

Rey’s blood starts to heat up inside her, though she’ll tell herself something else about that later. Come up with a better and more convenient lie then. Now she doesn’t return his kiss, or at least not fully. More or less she _allows_ him to touch her and caress her while she stays limp in his arms.

 

He’s being respectful. Rough, surely, but also very respectful. Never pushing her for anything more than compliance. She could stop him in an instant, couldn’t she?

 

After a few moments, he pulls back. Breaks free from her mouth and breathes against it. Her lips tingle under him and yes, she misses his touch. She _will_ miss his touch very soon and the truth of that creates a dull pang in her chest.

 

“I’m not going anywhere, Rey,” he promises. “I’ll be right here. We both will be. You have nothing to worry about.”

 

She could tell him that she doesn’t want this, but that would be a lie and they’d both know it. And maybe this will be enough for an eternity, no need to escalate. But if he’s willing to simply enjoy her and not think so damn much about it…

 

Rey gives a tiny, noncommittal noise in the back of her throat. Acquiesce. Passive acquiescence.

 

Kylo hauls her into him, pulling her even tighter and burying his face against her neck. It’s such a desperate and needy embrace that she gives in to what the light side commands of her. She wraps her arms around his shoulders and breathes him in. Giving him a scrap of affection to make up for what she’s about to do.

 

It’s nice. The way he’s nuzzling her. The kissing was nice, too. Maybe they can go a little more before she…

 

No. She can’t think it. He’s so much in her head right now that it’s too dangerous.

 

Instead, she concentrates on the feeling of his muscles under her fingertips or the breathy gasps he makes against her skin as he struggles to hold himself back for her sake.

 

“You’re safe, I promise you.”

 

He starts to rain kisses down on her jaw, along her neck. A few soft bites thrown in as well and his teeth clink against the metal of her Force collar. Can he feel how her heart is pounding? It’s so loud in her own ears that she only hopes it will drown her thoughts out.

 

She only has one chance at this.

 

“Take it off me.”

 

Kylo slows to a stop. His face is pressed firmly against her neck and the hands around her waist tighten. She feels his pressure in her mind as he prowls around but she has faith in herself.

 

Then he rests his chin on her collarbone and he’s so unbelievably heavy that she has to shift an arm behind her to support it. Thick skull indeed.

 

His hand can span her whole neck easily, and he traces his thumb almost lovingly along the edge of her collar while caressing her skin on the opposite side. The gesture is somewhat demeaning, but she allows it given the nature of the situation.

 

“Rey.”

 

Just her name. He nuzzles her again with his nose and she tips away to escape his bizarre fanaticism. So he kisses her pulse point instead and she waits until he leaves her mind to repeat her request.

 

“You know that I can’t do that,” he answers. The words mumbled against her skin as he works his busy mouth upward toward her ear. It tickles and she bounces her shoulder twice to get him to back off.

 

“You planned on leaving it on me forever then?”

 

He looks down, staring at the skin he was molesting.

 

“No. Just until you change your mind.”

 

She squirms the tiny bit he allows her to get away. It’s not much, but enough for her to see the unhappy pout on his swollen lips. Irrationally, it makes her long to kiss him. She wants to, he’s desperate for her to, but she’s sure that’s just their bond tempting her. Or perhaps it’s giving her an idea?

 

“Take it off and I’ll kiss you back.”

 

He shifts and the pressure in her head returns. She pushes her own misguided feelings of desire towards him. Gods know her racing libido has to be good for something right now.

 

“Don’t cheapen yourself, Rey.”

 

You’re better than that. That’s what he means and was she really being so obvious? Seduction is so kriffing _hard_ and she’s pretty sure that she’s making a complete ass of herself right now. But she needs to get away from here so badly that she’ll do whatever it takes.

 

She grabs his neck and pulls. Presses her mouth to his and moves her lips against his own. It’s clumsy and doesn’t feel anywhere as nice as when he does it to her.

 

“Stop.”

 

Kylo starts to disentangle himself from her. He pushes on her sternum, pressing her back down onto his mattress.

 

“Please,” she whines softly, trying again. “Please take this off. I hate it so much.”

 

It’s not begging. She wouldn’t beg to him. Ever. It’s strategy pure and simple. This means nothing.

 

She reaches out to him again, and he slaps her hand away.

 

“Don’t take me for a fool, Rey.”

 

Okay, to be fair, she _had_ told him that she was going to do exactly this: seduce him and escape. If only she had just kept her mouth shut and not let her temper run off with it.

 

He sits against the edge of the bed with his back to her. But he doesn’t get up and leave. So… change strategies?

 

Rey scoots up on to her elbows. His shoulders tighten as he feels the bed move. Subtly, very subtly, he turns his head toward her direction.

 

She has to choose her next words very carefully. “There has to be at least some shred of trust in our relationship, Kylo. Even the barest amount.”

 

He turns fully away from her.

 

“We don’t _have_ a relationship, Rey. You’ve made that abundantly clear.”

 

This isn’t working. She doesn’t know what to do.

 

“I just want it off for a moment. You said that you know what it’s like to wear one. It’s horrible.”

 

Silence. She wishes she could see his face to gauge if she’s making progress.

 

“Please? Kylo? I… I’m not going anywhere. I’m in a _prison_ _c_ _ell_ , for kriff’s sake. There’s no place for me to go. If I escape, then you’ll be able to catch me. You did it last time.”

 

His eyes narrow at the memory of her previous escape attempt. Anyone who didn’t know him as intimately as she did, even if it was a vicarious sort of knowledge, would think that he was pissed. But he’s not at all. Very much the opposite, in fact.

 

She can see it clearly in her mind, through their bond and her limited use of the Force. When she’d hit him, racked him technically, he’d been furious, bruised, and nearly in a panic that she would actually get away. Then he’d been so relieved when he’d caught her that he didn’t even mind the pain of tumbling head over heels down a flight of stairs.

 

Kylo throws the memory to her when he senses her poking at it. He wants her to know that the reason he didn’t mind was because it gave him the chance to show her that he could protect her. Not that she’d appreciated it at all at the time.

 

She had later actually, slightly, but she hides that from him. No use petting the dog you’re about to kick.

 

“You like chasing me.”

 

It’s neither a question nor an accusation from her. Merely a statement of truth.

 

And to say that he’d liked it was an understatement. He eagerly shows her what happened next. After he’d carried her unconscious body back to her new cell, he’d laid her in bed and stroked her. Caressed her face and hovered there for a while, watching her sleep. Then he’d leaned down and kissed her unresponsive mouth. A small ‘goodnight’ peck that was every bit as fleetingly affectionate as it was unwelcome.

 

Rey gives an irate gasp, snapping her mind to the present and out of his hold. All things considered, it’s a silly thing to get worked up over. But it meant something to her and judging by Kylo guilty posture he knew that perfectly well.

 

“If you run from me, I’ll find you,” he promises. “No matter where you go. I’ll never stop hunting you until I have you.”

 

“You’ll never have me, Kylo.”

 

“Then I’ll never stop hunting you.”

 

No apology, just a thinly veiled threat. Predictably possessive and full of the same unfounded obsession that she’s come to expect from him.

 

He watches her now from the corner of his eye.

 

“You woke me up when you tried to contact Skywalker. Did you know I was asleep, or did you think I would simply be unaware?”

 

She frowns at the sudden change in direction. Rey had simply assumed that she’d been sloppy in her attempts to override the collar. It hadn’t occurred to her to be anything more.

 

“Do you want to know what I dreamed about last night?” he asks again.

 

Rey’s instinctive reaction is to tell him ‘no’, in no uncertain terms. She’s bore witness to enough of his fantasies to be able to guess, but something about his tone hints at a different sort of agenda this time.

 

“What?” she asks, hesitantly taking the bait.

 

“I dreamed that you had a child. Not with me, but with the pilot. And you’d tried to keep it a secret from me, but of course I found out through our bond.”

 

Rey stares at the back of his skull, speechless. Waiting for him to turn around and deliver the punchline to his very bizarre joke. He doesn’t.

 

“You’re serious? You had a fantasy of me getting knocked up by Poe? _That’s_ the kind of thing that your fractured, burned out mind comes up with at night?”

 

He turns away from her again and she edges closer to be able to hear him. Props her weight up with an arm next to his own so she can see his face. He’s frowning, forehead drawn tight into two deep vertical lines.

 

“Kylo?”

 

She reaches out to poke at him. He shrugs away from her. Tips his posture away from her so she’s not so close.

 

“I took him from you. Your son. In my dream he looked just like me, which of course he wouldn’t, but dreams don’t always make sense like that. So when I found out about him, I found a way to take him with me.”

 

She studies the patterns of freckles on the side of his face. The strong profile line of his nose and jaw. She wishes she’d seen pictures of Ben Solo as a child. His features more or less come together now, but when he was young he must have looked very odd.

 

“You dream about me having a child with another man and you stealing him?”

 

“More of a nightmare and, yes, apparently that’s what exactly what I do. I’ve never had a dream like that before. And then when I woke up you were trying to contact Skywalker and leave me.”

 

He looks at her. It’s an accusation. Is she supposed to pity him? What he just told her is practically certifiable.

 

“Why are you… What happened after that? In your dream?

 

“You can’t be with anyone else, Rey. Because now you’ll know what will happen if you do.”

 

That annoys her. She moves, sitting on her knees in the center of her bed and glaring at the inky black head bowed low.

 

“That’s quite a double standard you’ve got there.”

 

His jaw tightens. At least he has the decency to feel ashamed.

 

“I… that wouldn’t have happened now. Things have changed between us.”

 

“Yeah, they’ve gone from bad to worse. Congratulations.”

 

“You know that not true. We’re talking now. Before all you ever did was ignore me.”

 

She snorts, feeling an odd sort of impulse to reach out and pull on his hair.

 

“Talk? No, Kylo. All we ever do now is argue. That’s hardly an improvement.”

 

“Arguing is a type of talking, it still counts. Or at least it did for my parents.”

 

His voice falls quieter for that last part and Rey frowns. Yes, Luke had hinted that Han and Leia’s relationship had been strained at times.

 

“That’s quite the understatement.”

 

“Stay out of my head.”

 

He smiles slightly. It’s almost imperceptible against his perpetual frown, but she can feel it through their bond.

 

“Why?” he asks. “So you can better plot your escape from me?”

 

Rey is a little relieved. That comment brings them back full circle to where they had started with this latest round.

 

Somehow they’d gone completely off track. Instead of seducing Kylo and overcoming him, all she’s accomplished is a touch-feely session where they talked about their feelings and how much they mean to each other. Pathetic.

 

So now she has to take it up a notch. Whatever that means.

 

Seduction… seducing… How to do it? Why isn’t there a manual on this sort of thing, or was that simply another part of growing up that she’d missed out on?

 

Rey reaches out and lays her palm flat across his back. Curls her fingers under and watches how the smooth and shiny black fabric of his shirt forms waves under her touch.

 

Kylo stays statue-still. The only sign that he’s paying attention is the slow tightening of his shoulder blades. Her touch isn’t unwanted, though. She can feel that through their bond and the slowly increasing tempo of his breath and heart.

 

Okay, so how would _she_ like to be seduced? It’s not something that she’s actually spent much time thinking of. Such thoughts are strictly forbidden to the Jedi, and Kylo seemed happy enough to be the aggressor in all their previous encounters.

 

She moves to sit right behind him. Not fully pressing herself against his back because she needs the space to be able to touch him. It’s something they’ve both been starved for, and now when she’s on the giving rather than receiving end it’s much easier to allow herself this luxury.

 

“What are you doing?”

 

His voice is still mopey, but he’s definitely intrigued. Maybe this is exactly what she needs to be doing.

 

Feeling encouraged, she starts to rub him in circles. Giving him a perfectly innocent back rub. When she moves lower down and to his sides, he jumps under her palms.

 

“Oh don’t tell me you’re ticklish?” She almost giggles. It’s too perfect.

 

He makes an offended noise and doesn’t answer. But the pale skin on his neck starts to tint with a rosey glow.

 

She leans forward and rests her chin on his shoulder. Draws her arms around his chest and hugs him from behind. From this new vantage she can see how he’s fisting her sheet tightly. How angry he looks but she knows better. No, he’s not actually angry at all. Far from it.

 

“Kylo?”

 

She wants to know what’s going on in his mind, but she’s afraid to go near their bond right now. He shakes his head, trying to ignore _her_ in a surprising turnaround.

 

“What’s wrong, Kylo?” she whispers against the edge of his ear.   
  
His jaw clenches. There’s such an inappropriate feeling of power that she has. It threatens to make her feel a little reckless, but she’s already in too deep so she may as well keep going.

 

She bites his ear. Sinks her teeth into the flexible cartilage and holds it. Nothing enough to break the skin, but when he exhales sharply and tries to pull away she follows him with. Squeezing him tighter with her arms and thighs wrapped around his waist.

 

“ _Rey._ ”

 

It’s a warning. A terrifying, growled, furious warning from a monster about top strike. Except she knows it’s not.

 

She lets go. Blows against the angry red flesh before pulling back. Biting her lower lip as she watches him.

 

He glares.

 

She smiles.

 

“You seem very pleased with yourself.”

 

Fair enough. She is. She really is.

 

In a smooth, effortless move he spins around. Sweeping her off her feet and pinning her down in the center of her prison bed. He keeps his weight off her and maybe she was wrong about him not being angry. He seems about equal parts turned on and pissed off.

 

“Is this what you wanted, Rey?” he squeezes her wrists tighter when she tries to squirm. “Is this the sort of reaction you were trying to get?”

 

Yes and no. Maybe? Rey didn’t really have a plan, though she had somehow hoped he’d get so distracted at the first millimeter of exposed flesh that he’d be rendered into a feeble and easily manipulated puddle of desire.

 

Kylo hums, letting go of one of her wrists to cup her chin. He gives a slightly harder yank than necessary to bring her head up to him.

 

She kisses him like he obviously wants. Maybe that will be enough? Maybe she just needed to give him more?

 

He matches her move for move. Their combined frustrations with each other making it more of a battle than it had to be. And it would be so easy to get swept away by this. By the heady and consuming wall of pure desire that is crashing down around her. More his then hers, but if she’s being honest…

 

No. No honesty here. Just survival.

 

“Why do you want me so much?” she whispers, each word being muffled between almost frantic lips and teeth. Shouldn’t this scare her more than it does?

 

“Because,” he pants into her open mouth, “because I never fought this. From the moment I realized what our bond was, I wanted it. And then...” he tries to tear his lips away to nibble along her jaw but she pulls him back with her fingernails raking into his scalp.

 

“And then?” she bites his lower lip. The deep moan he gives in return makes her dizzy.

 

“I wanted it, and then I wanted you. Gods Rey, I’ve wanted you for so long.”

 

Atraitorous voice in her mind calls out. She bites him again to distract him from hearing it.

 

He has her, but it’s not like he means. She’s his prisoner, nothing more. Anything else is purely in his imagination.

 

“You drive me crazy, Rey. Absolutely out of my mind.”

 

“I know.”

 

It’s all true. He’d been fanatical in his search for her. And now here they are.

 

She knows that she needs to put a stop to this, but there’s something about how he hovers over her, pinning with his arms and his lips and his hands, that feels _absolutely right_.

 

It’s their bond talking. Their twisted, messed up curse.

 

She needs to get out of here, but she can’t make her move now. He’s still waiting for it. Every part of him is tense from both arousal and readiness. He knows that she’s going to try to escape. She kriffing told him that much. So she has to distract him.

 

Yes. A distraction. That’s why she leans up and kisses him again. Their bond is a narcotic pulling and cajoling her. Making the lips of her enemy feel like the best damn thing she’s ever had on her own skin.

 

There’s one thing that could make it better, though.

 

Kylo surprises her again by pulling away. Gently holds her back so he can stare at her. His fingers trace along her collar and all she can think about is how his lips are glistening with their shared saliva.

 

“Don’t pretend you’re not going to run away.”

 

There are a million different things that Rey can say right now. Purr a seduction. Beg for her freedom. Demand for her freedom. Deny everything and tell him she’s changed her mind. Or maybe even admit the truth.

 

She’s been through this already. Honesty is not the best policy. Not at all.

 

“You’ll like me more without it. It will be better.”

 

Better for him or better for her? She doesn’t explain and still he hesitates. Hesitates until she runs her tongue nervously along her lower lip and he squeezes his eyes tightly closed.

 

He kisses her again. Sweet and quick. Then his hands slide to her collar and her heart beats faster. She arches her back, bringing her neck up to make it easier for him.

 

The second that the collar comes off, his hands close around her neck. Squeezing her tight enough to make it hard to breathe and, when she tries to swallow down the nervous knot in her throat, his thumb digs in. It sends a clear and unmistakable message and she nods. Pretending to be submissive will hurt her ego only for a moment.

 

Rey had expected many things. Not only from having her much-hated collar _finally_ removed, but from this whole night as well. Just like she’d expected Kylo to drop robe and ravish her at the first sign of her willingness, she’d also expected the Force to crash back into her like a tidal wave.

 

Instead, it slowly ebbs in. Rather than a tsunami of chaos, it flows like the light of dawn spilling in under the crack in a door.

 

Slowly, ever so slowly, it fills Rey. She closes her eyes, trying to enhance the sensation. Beckoning the power into her.

 

“You are a _goddess_.”

 

Kylo’s words make her blush even more than his reverent tone. She’s positive that he’s watching her with that same look of awe that he’d had when they’d first crossed sabers over the snow.

 

She doesn’t try to push him off her immediately. He’s expecting it too much. Kylo is many things, but he’s also very, very powerful. If she underestimates him now, she may never get another chance.

 

So she kisses him again. She was right, even if she hadn’t meant to be. It does feel better without the collar. Without the constant weight and creeping, nagging irritation of being suppressed.

 

He’s surprised. And very suspicious. She deepens the kiss, letting herself fall limp against his hold. Hoping that he will take-

 

Kylo takes the bait. Allows himself to grow distracted by her charms not to notice as she carefully shuts pieces of her mind away from him. Giving her thoughts a sanctuary where he can’t find them.

 

He moves lower. A sloppy, wet trail kissing down her neck to her collarbones. She rests her hands in his hair because it feels like the natural thing to do.

 

She makes a soft little ‘yip’ sound when he jumps over the space between her breasts and yanks the bottom edge of her undershirt up with his teeth.

 

“Ticklish?” he asks, no shortage of smugness in his tone.

 

“Fuck off.”

 

She’s pretty sure that she’s blushing everywhere. Her heightened pulse and breath only making her skin more sensitive as he starts to nibble along her stomach. He pulls the fabric up higher and out of his way until it’s wadded up by her armpits.

 

As ridiculous as it is, Rey kind of wishes that she was wearing prettier undergarments for this. How is she supposed to seduce him to distraction in a plain, military issued breast band?

 

Well, judging by Kylo’s dilated eyes and heavy breathing heating up her exposed skin, he didn’t appear to mind. Or possibly even notice. He leans up to give her another kiss, brief and messy, before darting his head down and starting to kiss a trail down the center of her body. Rey’s eyes grow wide as she realizes his intention.

 

“Oh no _no no no_.”

 

She shoots her protest off rapidly at the first tug on the waistband to her pants. He pauses, then pops open the top bottom, lips mouthing shapes over her exposed lower stomach.

 

“Kylo, _stop_.”

 

She yanks on his hair, pulling it hard enough that he detaches from suctioning her skin into his mouth. She swears to the gods if she has a hickey…

 

“You’ll like this, Rey. I promise.”

 

He kisses her again, right below her bellybutton. Her fingers tighten, trying to stop his downward progression. _Of course_ she’d like it. When he was with… when he was _abusing_ that other poor girl, she’d given every appearance of having the time of her life while he was doing _that_ to her.

 

The thought annoys Rey deeply. When threats of yanking his hair out of his scalp aren’t enough to dissuade her ardent molester, she boxes him in his ear with her knee. The knee of the leg that hadn’t realized had curled itself around him when she wasn’t paying attention to it.

 

Kylo sighs. Nods softly and lets Rey drag him back up by the roots of his hair.

 

“You’re no fun,” he pouts.

 

“Gods, don’t you even-”

 

Another kiss. Silencing her gritted out threat. She’s still stinging from that memory, and that’s brought her attention back to the task at hand.

 

Distract Kylo. Get the holy fuck out of here. That’s what she needs to do.

 

He pulls away, looking thoroughly distracted. Then he licks two of his fingers and starts to slide them slowly down her body to where his head was and Rey wonders if her heart isn’t literally about to beat out of her chest.

 

“Better?” he asks.

 

Rey finds that she has no voice left to answer him. Just who is seducing who here?

 

His hand works itself under her waistband and she starts to tremble. He shushes her, giving her a delicate peck on the tip of her nose, and lets her bury her burning face into his neck as his fingers go to work.

 

This is entirely, 100%, absolutely their bond’s fault. If Rey had a clear mind, she would never allow this. Never ever. Not in a million years.

 

Godsdamnit this is good. He’s practiced this on that other girl, didn’t he? It’s not fair that he knows exactly how to touch her to make her squirm and forget herself.

 

She thinks he’s whispering something to her. She can feel his lips move against her ear and she nestles her face in deeper, hiding her shame.

 

Jedi don’t permit people to do this. But she’s not a Jedi yet.

 

She bites his jugular hard. His deep groan reverberates through her teeth. Gods, he really is a kinky fucker isn’t he?

 

But maybe this is exactly what she needs. She’s earned this, hasn’t she? It’s _her_ turn. Here’s her last chance to let go. And now she has the perfect opportunity for a really good, quality orgasm. One last touch of physical pleasure before she commits herself completely to a life of simple purity.

 

And then, once she’s got a clear head and her raging hormones have been satiated, she can make her move. Their bond will finally allow her to flee from this.

 

He says her name again. Moans it, more accurately. Gently pulls her away from her hiding spot against his skin so that he can look at her.

 

His expression is all masculine pride blended with pure, raw desire. He gives her a cocky smile that would normally make her furious but now only makes her even wetter.

 

“Trying to break a speed record?” he asks, though it takes her a few moments to make sense of his words. “We’ve got all night, no need to rush.”

 

Er, she may have been grinding herself against his hand. Furiously. Maybe. She definitely wasn’t moaning and panting out little ‘oh’ sounds. That part certainly didn’t happen either.

 

They kiss again, or at least try to. Rey is so distracted by the cautionary fluttering in her lower body that she can’t do much more than pant against his mouth and try to pull him closer.

 

Even in this, they find a way to fight each other. Kylo desperately wants to watch her face as she comes apart. Rey wants exactly the opposite. She can't stand the thought of him watching her in her final moments. This is all far too intimate as it is. She can’t risk giving up anything more than what she has already.

 

Kylo wins out. She closes her eyes shut and her back arches on its own accord. Shoving her chest against his as she finally gives in to the cresting pleasure . She can feel him staring, trying to memorize every nuance of her expression, but she’s too besides herself to care.

 

For kriffs sake, she’s climaxing on his hand and in his arms. Could this moment possibly get any worse?

 

At least she didn’t moan his name at the end. That part definitely didn’t happen, either.

 

And then she collapses. Sweaty, boneless, blissful, and already scheming.

 

Kylo is strung up tight. She can feel him pressing against her hip, which means that he’s not thinking any clearer than she was a few minutes ago. Their damned bond makes them all stupid and horny. It’s all its fault, so it’s only fair to make it the instrument of her freedom.

 

Rey runs her fingers through his hair. Petting him and smiling softly up at him. Trying to project the perfect vision of a post-orgasmic glow. He falls for it hook line and sinker. Returns her blissful expression and kisses her palm, holding one of her hands in his own. His eyes close in happiness as she strokes his face.

 

And that’s when Rey flips the switch.

 

In one sudden push, she uses their bond to sink deeply into his psyche. As far down as she can while using a side of the Force that will soon be completely off-limits to her. His eyes shoot open as the moment abruptly changes.

 

It makes her fight harder. Use every bit of her power to rake through his mind. It’s ugly and savage, but all she needs is one thing. Just to find that one little part of him that she can turn off to make him pass out.

 

Kylo snarls, grabbing her head tightly between his hands and squeezing as he tries to push her out. She immediately starts to lose her ground. He’s too goddamn strong and she’s got no chance.

 

But she also has no other option. Rey had wanted this to go smoothly, but she’s about to lose this fight and he’s left her no choice.

 

Repeating the move she did last time, the one that had brought her first taste of freedom, she pushes away to get enough leverage. Then she strikes her knee between his legs with all her strength. She doesn’t have the momentum she did last time, but apparently his still aroused state makes up the difference.

 

Severe pain lances through them both, their cruel and unwanted bond reflecting it back at her in punishment. But she latches on to that feeling, too, and uses it to amplify her connection to the Force. Kylo is still in shock, and that one second of inattention is enough. She pierces into his mind again, honing in to exactly what she was looking for.

 

“ ** _Sleep!_ ”**

 

She screams the command at him, both in their shared mind and in real life. Kylo freezes and for one fleeting moment he looks into her eyes and she doesn’t quite know what emotion she sees reflecting back at her. On some level they both must know this is goodbye.

 

Then he collapses, boneless and heavy, on top of her.

 

If she didn’t have the Force, she’d be pinned under him until he woke up. However long that would be. She’s never done this before and he’s so strong it probably won’t last for long.

 

Long enough, though.

 

Rey lifts him up with a mental push. Enough for her to crawl out from under him. Then she tugs her shirt down into place and runs barefoot for the door. Another surge of her power and the keypad sparks and spits smoke, the door creaking open so she can slide through.

 

Just before she goes, she looks back. Kylo is a hulking black shape sprawled across her mattress. From this angle, it’s easy to pretend he’s nothing more than a sleeping monster.

 

She doesn’t regret doing it. Not even a little bit. But she does regret having to make it so brutal. It was a messy, painful thing for them both.

 

Rey takes two steps back in and grabs a piece off the table to the side of the room. Then she turns and flees, running like she’s never run before.

 

*

 

By the time Kylo regains awareness, Rey is already in hyperspace.

 

She feels him wake up in stages and there’s something oddly familiar and melancholic about it. On impulse, before the memory of what just happened and almost happened flood back into him, he reaches out for her. His first thoughts every day are of her. Apparently. She doesn’t know how to feel about that.

 

But it’s alright. It’s all over now. It’s _finally_ over. She’s free of him and heading home.

 

Rey knows that she should feel happier about that than she really does.

 

She can feel him call to her through their bond. He’s not mad. Maybe at himself, but not really at her. Dumbly he’s hoping against hope that she’s still his. Still there with him.

 

Then the hope turns to pain as he realizes she’s escaped. Not only escaped, but escaped so far that he can’t catch her again.

 

The sting of his emotions rots in her mind. Bitter, biting, and full of such a profound sense of loss. No, he’s not angry with her, but he’s hurt. Somehow she managed to hurt the great Kylo Ren’s feelings. There was a time she didn’t know that he had any.

 

Rey closes their connection, shutting herself off completely from the sharp misery that he’s turning towards himself. She’s sure that he’ll transform that pain and use it to make himself stronger. That what she did will drive him even further from the Light.

 

But she had no choice. She had to get away.

 

_This isn’t over, Rey. I will find you._

 

He throws the thought against the walls in her mind. Knows better than to waste his effort trying to tear them down.

 

In an odd way, he’s actually taking this much better than she’d expected him too. Perhaps this was a growing opportunity for them both.

 

And he’s right again, too. Their fates are linked and their paths will inevitably cross, probably much sooner than later. She has to be ready for that when it happens.

 

But what of her Master Luke? How can she possibly convince him to keep her as his apprentice? Now when she’s allowed herself to be so tangled together with Kylo?

 

It’s not going to be easy, but she’ll find a way. She has to.

 

Escaping Kylo Ren’s twisted lair of villainy was simple. Now comes the tricky part.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I actually felt bad for our poor, thick-skulled prince of darkness. Nevermind that he deserved every bit of it all. Next time these two see each other will be in the not too distant future, so they’d both better hurry up and sort out their feelings. Which they probably won’t, by the way. Spoilers.
> 
> Epilogue: Where Rey slinks back to her Master with her tail thoroughly between her legs and her soiled panties shoved into a garbage shoot somewhere.


	8. Epilogue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Where Luke Skywalker’s days of being just so over his nephew have truly come to a middle.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> When I was editing this chapter, I found a profound number of times that I had misspelled ‘bond’ as ‘boned’. I think this may have been a sign.

Ahch-To was exactly how Rey remembered leaving it. 

 

The island was a rainy blur of emerald green set against a backdrop of slate grey waters. The air was wet and far too cold for her liking, but it was familiar and brought with it a much needed sense of comfort. She was finally _home_. 

 

It felt like a lifetime ago since she was here last. So much had happened it such a short span of days.

 

In less than a week her whole world had been flipped inside of itself and once again she was left aimless. There were so many questions that she had, and she could only pray that her master would be willing to hear them.

 

But Rey would be lying if she said she wasn’t disappointed by the greeting she had received. She had hoped for Luke to meet her with open arms and all would be forgiven in an instant. It was a childish dream, but one that she’d held close throughout her time in captivity. 

 

Instead, she had stepped off the ship with all the nervous energy of a preteen caught sneaking in through a window after curfew. 

 

Luke had greeted her at the landing site and he was wearing his cowl up. That was a bad sign. And he had hugged her, or rather silently returned her stilted and awkward upper-body leaning forward maneuver, but his hands had only patted at her back and not fully wrapped around her body.

 

Oh shit, she was _really_ in trouble, wasn’t she?

 

“Master…” she had everything and nothing to say. 

 

His face was as impassive as stone. Devoid of emotions other than for an icy glint of determination in his eye. He’d pushed her away from him then, holding her at a distance by her shoulders, and Rey’s plea of ‘what’s wrong?’ fell to silence before it left her throat. 

 

The feeling of him in her head was shocking. It didn’t hurt or flay her mind open like when Kylo did it, but such an invasion without permission had been strictly forbidden. Never without asking, he had stressed during their first lessons together. _Never_ without asking.

 

He hadn’t pushed too far. More of a passing surface scan, and it took her a few breaths to realize he was making sure it was really her. Making sure that she was really in control of her own thoughts, and wasn’t somehow being manipulated from across the galaxy.

 

“Master,” she tries again, her nerve returning when she begins to understand the nature of his reaction. “Master, I’m back. I’m here now and I’m very, _very_ sorry.”

 

Apologizing seemed like the right first step. If he pressed, she could start to rattle off the list of her sins. Starting with lying about where she and Finn and Poe were going and progressing to getting too shitfaced trashed to be able to defend herself. A very careful glossing over of exactly how she managed to get the Force collar off would be required, but she’d had a polite blueprint of her story already well memorized.

 

Her master leaves her head as softly as he’d entered. He bows his chin low and steps back, clearing the way for her to walk ahead of him and into the cluster of huts.

 

“Come inside, Rey. We have so much to talk about.”

 

*

 

Rey didn’t want to lie to Luke, but being fully honest was an impossibility.

 

So she tries to act normally. Whatever the hell “normally” was. Crack a few jokes, offer to get caught back up on her chores, ask about when they’d start their training together again.

 

Luke had continued to regard her cooly. It had made her twitchy, and she’d gotten up and started to fuss around, picking up the dishes and taking them out to the wash area. A firm hand had caught her shoulder and stopped her in her tracks.

 

“I’m disappointed in you, Rey. I had expected better of you than this.”

 

Oh gods, that hurts worse than she’d braced herself for. The words are honest, but so blunt that they cut her down to her very soul. The last thing in the universe she could stand would be disappointing someone who had taken her in and taken care of her.

 

Rey scrambles to tell him what he wants to hear. “Master...”

 

“I know you’ve been through a lot, Rey. I can see how your ordeal is weighing upon you.”

 

Rey nods. That was an understatement. 

 

“It was a true challenge, Master. A test of my skill and resilience. But I overcame it in the end and I have learned from the experience.”

 

See? See how she’s learned her lesson? Now her master must forgive her. He has to see that she’s still a good student. That she can still learn.

 

Luke watches her quietly, and she wonders how much her face is giving away.

 

“What did you learn from Ben while you were with him?” he finally asks, letting go of her arm and allowing her to half curl up on herself. “What was Ben like?” 

 

His voice carries a tone of resignation mixed with an absence of emotion. And gods, what a question that was… What was Kylo really like? He had been somehow both better and worse than she could have imagined.

 

“He is lost, Master,” she doesn’t know how else to phrase it. “Lost and miserable and desperate.”

 

Luke has no outward reaction. When she doesn’t elaborate, he gestures for her to continue.

 

“Desperate for what?”

 

For her, or so it would seem.

 

“For acceptance. He’s lonely and very unhappy. More so than I think he even knows himself.”

 

Luke steps back, clearing the path and Rey takes this as her prompt to sit back down and continue.

 

“Kylo also… surprised me, Master. I would like to talk to you about that. I have so many questions.”

 

Luke meets her eyes and holds it until she looks away. She stares at the space of flooring between her toes before remembering that this was _Master Luke_ she was with now and not some psychopath who will invade into her mind more often than he stays outside of it.

 

“Alright Rey, but I may not have any answers for you. Or they may not be what you want to hear.”

 

All Rey wants is the truth. Plain and simple and black and white. Somehow, she doubts she’s ever going to get that. And she knows that she’s asking the wrong person, but Master Skywalker must surely have deep insights that she doesn’t, right?

 

She prods at her cup of tea that had been cooling on the table in front of her. It sloshes over the side of the rim and she wipes the spill up with the corner of her sleeve while Master Luke looks on.

 

“Rey?”

 

“He didn’t try to convert me. Not through force or torture or… any other way. I had expected him to try to sway me to the Dark side.”

 

“I would have assumed so as well.”

 

Luke joins her then, sitting across from her with the table between them. It helps calm her rambling mind because now this feels more like a conversation and less like a cross-examination.

 

“So what did he want from you?” Luke asks. She swallows and takes a breath before continuing.

 

“I’m not- several things, I guess. For me to use my side of the bond. To strengthen our connection. And… and for me to _stop ignoring him_. That was the core of it. He really didn’t like me ignoring him.”

 

Nope. Not at all. Rey wonders how much of this could have been avoided if she hadn’t tried to shut him out before? She let him in at times, too. She’d been too weak and had given in on multiple occasions to the pull of their connection. Maybe that was her error: unsafe use of intermittent reinforcement. She clears her throat before continuing.

 

“Kylo had been… he’d wanted my attention for a while. When I wouldn’t give it to him, he found a foolproof way to change my mind. To ensure that I couldn’t keep overlooking him.”

 

That’s the way she chooses to phrase it. There are plenty other ways as well, but she’s already caused her master enough disappointment. No need to rattle on about her escalating sexual explorations add a giving Luke a heart attack to the list as well.

 

“And you didn’t think to tell me about any of this before? You didn’t think that I should have known?”

 

He doesn’t sound surprised that Kylo had been reaching out to her, but there’s a hint of hurt in his tone now when he asks. She had kept that from him and now she has to pay the consequences for her dishonesty.

 

Rey flushes and looks out the window. The sky is darkening with an approaching storm. Afternoon rain was quite common on Ahch-To and could sometimes last for days.

 

What does he expect her to say? There’s no way that she could have told him exactly what his nephew was doing to her. That in the weeks prior to her kidnapping her nights had been anything _but_ restful or lonely.

 

“I was ashamed of my weakness. I’m sorry Master.”

 

She hangs her head in a display of contrition. When she looks up again, Master Luke looks less than impressed.

 

“I want you to tell me everything that Ben did to you,” he says, leaning back and glancing out at the cloudy sky with a deep frown. “I want you to tell me everything that happened after he’d taken you away. Leave nothing out. Can you do that?”

 

She can. And will. Because she has no other choice.

 

Rey nods, feeling trapped in all directions. If Kylo was here, she’d feel like she’s being interrogated. Feel like she has to be strong and give nothing away. But her master… she has to have absolute trust in him. She’d promised him and herself that she would, no matter what.

 

“Yes, Rey?” he prompts, stepping forward to take the dirty plate and cup from her and set them down out of the way.

 

“Yes, Master. I promise to tell you everything that happened.”

 

That way he’ll start to trust her again. He’ll be able to see that she’s not somehow being swayed to the Dark Side and she’s as loyal to him as she was when she’d first taken her vows to uphold the Light.

 

Rey fidgets with the edge of her sleeves. Luke takes the hint and waits with a degree of calm patience that makes her envious. Allowing her the space but not the time to properly collect her thoughts.

 

*

 

Rey doesn’t actually tell him everything that had happened. She just _can’t_.

 

Oh she starts from the beginning, admitting with a downcast whisper of shame how she had lied about why she had been going to Coruscant. Explaining that she had simply wanted to get drunk and have fun with her two most trusted friends. It was meant to be harmless debauchery, if two such opposing goals were even possible.

 

Luke’s beard had twitched slightly. If Rey didn’t know better, she would have almost thought that he was trying to suppress a smirk of amusement. Except she, of course, knew better.

 

Rey on lightly covered her first day as Kylo’s prisoner. How he clearly had an agenda. How he had kept her in pain and darkness, but it wasn’t full-on torture. 

 

Luke had argued that point, but she’d hurried on past that first stage quickly. Not wanting to relive it in any more great depth and not fully understanding Kylo’s motives even now. She had suspected that he’d been trying to make her use their bond by taking away any other alternative. 

 

“It becomes stronger when you both use it, then?” Luke had asked.

 

“Our bond? Yes. I think so. Before this, it had always been one-sided until…”

 

Luke eyebrows raised.

 

“Until?”

 

Rey pretends to be thinking deeply as she buys herself some time. 

 

“Until a few days into my imprisonment when I’d tried to escape and had decided to use our bond to assist me. To, um, help me locate his whereabouts so I could… escape better.”

 

Luke sighs. Looks at her in that fatherly, disapproving way that makes her feel like the true fuckup that she is.

 

“Keep going, Rey.”

 

It’s an order. Nicely phrased and softly put, but an order regardless, and she has to follow it. 

 

So she continues on with her story, hemming and hawing and glossing over certain bits and pieces while watching her master turn a very strange color.

 

Does he know how much she’s lying to him? Because she’s lying a lot.

 

No, no wait. She isn’t. She’s not _lying_ , per se. She’s restructuring. Synopsisis… synopsize… synsing-

 

Nevermind, that’s not a word. She’s _summarizing_ her story. That’s the one. _Summarizing_ for the sake of being _succinct_. 

 

No reason to go in detail about how Kylo fondled himself when she was taking bath and it was the hottest thing that she’d ever seen. She can simply say that Kylo had indicated she would be held prisoner for a long time so she had better get comfortable.

 

And she can safely leave out the part about how she let him finger-bang her in her own bed because, oh kriff, she was just really horny and it was all his fault. No reason to say that at all when “I sensed him using our bond more and more, so I waited until a moment that he was distracted to knock him out and make my escape” sounds so much better.

 

When Rey had gotten to the part of her story where Kylo had told her his dream, she’d been reluctant to continue. Make Luke immediately noticed her hesitation, but he gave her time to decide what to say. It had been such a close and personal moment that Kylo had shared with her. He had inadvertently revealed that his greatest fear is her falling in love with someone else. 

 

“What is it, Rey? Your voice is becoming quieter and quieter.”

 

The waves of emotions that she’d been fighting back are beginning to win the battle. It makes her feel like that lost little girl all over again. So confused and unsure.

 

She looks up at her master and part of her is pleading for him to give her a hug, or at least reassuringly hold her hand. She’s been so starved of comfort for so long, but the grim set to Luke’s lips tells her now is not the time. She has amends to make and then, only then, can she try to sneak a quick hug in with her grumpy old curmudgeon of a teacher.

 

“Kylo told me that he had a nightmare about me. I don’t know if he was telling the truth or not, but what he said about it was very strange.”

 

Luke remains silent, waiting for her to continue. 

 

“He said that in his dream I’d… I had a son. With Poe. I don’t know why he would think about that or why he told me.”

 

Well, the ‘why’ part she’d already guessed at. After all, she had taunted Kylo with a half-baked mental image of an erotic fantasy of her and Poe together. It had just been to pettily get back at him. Make him feel a fraction of the hurt that she had felt when he’d been with another woman. She hadn’t given her fantasy much thought afterwards as it’s only purpose had been to briefly torment Kylo.

 

And torment him it truly had. He’d taken it to such an extreme that he’d lost sleep over it. All because she’d thought Poe was kind of cute. It didn’t make sense, but then again, very little of Kylo’s behavior ever seemed to.

 

“Ben is very fixated on Dameron, isn’t he?” Luke comments with a frown.

 

“Yes Master, he is.”

 

“And why do you think that is?”

 

A million reasons, some of which she herself is responsible for. But Rey shakes her head and shrugs one shoulder.

 

“...he’s jealous?”

 

Luke nods. 

 

“Terribly, terribly jealous,” she continues, feeling bolstered that she was on the right path. “Kylo is a boy that never fully grew up and can’t stand the thought of his favorite toy being played by with anyone else.”

 

“Is that what you think you are to him? A toy?”

 

Maybe.

 

“Yes.”

 

“Then why aren’t you angrier?” Luke asks, and Rey chews on the inside of her lower lip. “He has mistreated you horribly, and yet the strongest emotion I feel from you is sadness.”

 

And there it is. The inconvenient truth and trust her master to cut straight to it.

Sadness, grief, and hope. Sometimes Rey doesn’t know if they are her own emotions, or a reflection of Kylo’s bouncing along the walls of their bond.

 

So why has her anger left her now? She certainly had been filled with it before. When… when she was near him. Almost as if she’d been absorbing his own emotions into herself. If so, what had he been taking from her?

 

“I’m not angry because… because there’s still light in him. And anger accomplishes nothing. He never hurt me, even though he had so many chances.”

 

“Rey, he _did_ hurt you. If not physically, though that as well, but he has left your mind so distraught. I don’t know how you can’t see that.” Luke leans forward, dropping his voice lower even though there was no one around to eavesdrop. “Ben is gone. He may still have light, if you say so, but he is broken beyond repair.”

 

Rey feels her heart stutter. Why is her master saying this? He’s telling her to give up. That isn’t the Jedi way. They are supposed to heal and make whole-

 

“No Rey, the Jedi way is to uphold, not to submit. Ben is empty after- after what he did to his father. And he was empty long before that. All the love in the universe could never fill him up. He is well and forever gone. I have accepted that a long time ago, and now it’s your turn.”

 

Rey is speechless. Is her master testing her? These are the last words she would ever expect him to say. 

 

“Were you… were you reading my thoughts? Just now?”

 

Rey had gotten so used to being invaded that she hadn’t even noticed. And Luke was as skilled and delicate as the finest maestro in the universe compared to Kylo’s aggressive, blunt-force mental invasions.

 

Master Luke slants back into his chair and looking away.

 

“I’m sorry, Rey. You were projecting and I was so wrapped up in what you were saying that I didn’t realize.”

 

Rey isn’t entirely sure that she believes him, but she still falls over herself accepting and continuing. Sweeping that odd, awkward little interlude aside to continue on with her debriefing. 

 

“For Poe… He’s jealous of him. Much more than Finn. Kylo is irritated with Finn on many levels, but he saves most of his focused hatred for Poe.”

 

Luke nods. “I’ve thought that as well. I wonder if he feels like Poe has taken his old place, or perhaps… There are many parallels that could be made between Poe and Han.”

 

That’s true. And Kylo is nothing if not spiteful. But she can’t see quite how that relates back to herself.

 

“Why is Kylo so obsessed with teaching me?” she asks. “Even before we were… even before our bond, he was so fixated on me becoming his student. It doesn’t make any sense.”

 

Luke smiles faintly as if she’d stumbled upon some sort of inside joke.

 

“It’s part of our DNA. As a Force-user, we are all compelled to carry on our knowledge, regardless of it being Light or Dark. One day it will happen to you, too.”

 

Rey huffs, not caring for that proclamation of inevitability.

 

“So one day I’ll kidnap some poor, unsuspecting youngling and refuse to let them go until they let me teach them saber forms and breathing exercises?”

 

Luke’s smile twitches wider. It must surely be a sore subject to him, but he seems to find her indignant refusal of her lot in life amusing. Is her path truly that laid out in front of her?

 

“Perhaps not quite like that, Rey. But yes, one day you will become desperate to pass on your wisdom to the next generation.”

 

She stops herself before she asks if that’s what happened to him when he was younger. Or maybe even now. She is his padawn, after all.

 

“So, his dream of me and Poe… that was all just because-”

 

“No, not just that he was afraid of being replaced, but I believe that Ben is suffering greatly. Half of his mind is turning against him. I can feel as much when I sense your connection.”

 

Rey knows better than to accuse her master of snooping into her mind. But it kind of sounds like he was snooping into her mind.

 

“What aren’t you telling me, Rey?”

 

He gives her no place to hide. Rey doesn’t know her own mind anymore, and now she is expected to confront it? It hardly seems fair.

 

“I’ve... I felt a change in him. I don’t think he is so empty like you believe.”

 

She wishes she could fully confide in her master. Tell him all of it in it’s ugly truth. But, even more than freeing her guilty conscience, she wanted to tell him the truth about the softer parts of Kylo that she had witnessed. Few as they were, they had existed and they’d meant something to her. The gifts he’d given her, the weaknesses he’d shown to her, the… desire to pleasure her.

 

Luke’s accusation had made her feel unreasonably defensive of their bond. But that doesn’t mean that he isn’t right.

 

“Rey.”

 

She looks up, surprised by how sharply her name had been said. Master Luke doesn’t look happy with her at all. The narrowness to his eyes as he studies her, like he’s beginning to doubt her all over again.

 

“Master? I don’t-”

 

“The rain will be here in a few minutes. I want you to go outside and bring in the washings. Pick a few pieces from the garden for dinner, while you’re there.”

 

Mindless busy work. It’s not a bad idea. Let them both have a few minutes to clear their heads.

 

Luke rises up and leaves without another word, and Rey wonders if he’s secretly angry or perhaps trying to hide another emotion.

 

*

 

The first drops of the downpour have already started and Rey moves quickly. Grateful for the fresh air and the reassurances of routine.

 

Part of her wants to reach out to Kylo. Not to talk to him or even open up to him more than the barest sliver, but she still checks on him through their bond. Making sure that he was not going to interfere with whatever is about to happen.

 

He was fully closed off from her. He could be anywhere, and doing anything. But he wasn’t in her head and she was safe.

 

_ You cheated on me. _

 

Rey falters at the memory. More than anything else that she had said during her captivity, these were the words that she had regretted the most. An unmistakable admission of everything that was wrong with her. Of how profoundly broken they both were.

 

Things only have the power that you give them.

 

Master Luke had told her that once. It had been a mantra to remind her to let go. 

 

But she had given their bond no power and it had consumed her. Maybe she needs to stop lying to herself. Soon. But not today.

 

Rey hurries to complete her assigned tasks before she gets soaked to the bone.

 

*

 

Her brief walk had done much to clear her head but nothing to calm her nerves.

 

Everything was still hanging in a balance of uncertainty, and she puts up every mental shield she has before returning back to the cluster of stone huts. Kylo has no say in whatever is about to happen, and she can’t afford to let him distract her as she pleads her case.

 

She is surprised to find Master Luke waiting for her in her room. She can sense his presence there, and feel how he’s not happy. It hurts to know with certainty how much of a disappointment she is to him. If only she’d been smarter, done better. She must be such a failure in his eyes, but she can still prove him wrong.

 

“Master?” she asks, cautiously knocking on her own bedroom door.

 

A pulse of the Force in response, and the door smoothly opens on its own volition. She steps inside, fiddling her fingers against the frame and progressing no further than one step past the threshold.

 

And her stomach rises up into her throat when she sees Luke sitting on the edge of her bed, a book open on his lap. Inside the book are the pressed and drying flowers that Kylo had given her when she was his prisoner. It had been his bizarre and kind of appalling attempt at romance. When she’d been escaping, she’d actually gone back for them. For some reason, she just couldn’t stand the thought of leaving the flowers behind to face her bondmate’s wrathful temper.

 

“Why do you have these?” Luke asks, even though he probably knows better than she does herself.

 

She had not only kept them, but she’d preserved them carefully and with great sentiment inside an old Jedi text. The condemning look in her Master’s eyes reveals that he’s displeased in far more than simply her staining the delicate, old pages.

 

Rey reaches out to take the book from him, just in case tantrums run in the family line. Luke places them back on the paper, and closes it before handing it to her. He is silent and controlled in his condemnation. So different from his nephew. It’s hard to believe they share any common blood at all.

 

She clutches the book to her chest and rolls her shoulders, trying to force the creeping tension in her neck back down.

 

“Rey? Please answer me. Why do you have these?”

 

“I don’t know.” 

 

Luke turns his head to look out of the windowless opening in the far wall. The sky is drenched now, and her room would be soaked if it wasn’t for the long overhang of the roof as an awning.

 

And she doesn’t know. It’s both a half truth and the full truth. Rey hasn’t _allowed_ herself to reflect on what had happened yet, therefore she doesn’t know why she would keep a memento at all. Or why she would feel so irrationally attached to a little piece of nothing that wasn’t even given to her with pure intentions.

 

“Please, sit down with me,” her Master requests.

 

She nods, walking stiffly to sit on the far edge of the bed. He remains stoic and cold as he watches how she lowers the book that she was holding like a shield over her heart and sets it aside.

 

“I’ve thought a great deal about your situation, as I’m sure you have as well.”

 

She’s been actively trying not to stare at his artificial hand. He wouldn’t be bothered by it if she did, but now it seems like a symbol of something greater. All she had ever wanted was a family, but if this was how they treated each other perhaps she had been better off abandoned.

 

“Yes Master, I have much to think about.”

 

He’s not buying her contrition. Her face must give her away too much. No wonder Kylo always wears that damned mask of his.

 

“You have made some poor choices,” he continues and her left eyebrow starts to twitch uncontrollably. “Those are understandable with your youth, and I believe that you have learned from them.”

 

She nods vigorously. Oh dear gods alcohol, never again. Never, ever again.

 

“But your ‘Bond’ is a far more serious problem.”

 

She peers at him from the corner of her eye, not missing the verbal quotes around ‘bond’.

 

“Yes Master, it is.”

 

Sometimes Master Luke corrects her and tells her to just call him Luke. This is not one of those times.

 

“Do you believe that this _connection_ between the two of you is dangerous?”

 

She takes a few deep breaths to collect her thoughts before answering.

 

“I… I didn’t think so at first. I didn’t understand it very much. In the beginning, at least. But now it’s been getting so much stronger.”

 

Kylo had done everything in his power to nourish it. Over the short course of her captivity, Rey knows that she could have tried to stop his efforts. And now it’s probably too late. What’s been done can’t be undone. Not anymore.

 

“It’s putting not only yourself but everyone you come into contact with in grave danger.”

 

Rey can’t argue with that. Kylo himself had threatened to do exactly what Luke was warning her of.

 

“So are you prepared to take the appropriate measures, Rey?”

 

There is no threat behind his words, veiled or otherwise. If she says no, maybe he’ll still let her stay. Still continue to teach her. But there will be an unsurmountable wall in place where now only the absolute trust between a Jedi Master and Padawan should be.

 

“Do you think that you can sever it?” she asks, pulse starting to increase as the full weight of the implication dawns on her. “Kylo had said that nothing could destroy it. That it was created by the Force itself and was unbreakable.”

 

The breath of his deep sigh tickles the side of her face. She hangs her head and stares at her knees.

 

“ _Ben_ has been wrong about many things, Rey.”

 

He reaches out, offering her his real hand. She hesitates for a second before holding it in her own.

 

“So it’s possible, then?”

 

The hand squeezes. 

 

“I believe so. And if not fully eradicate it, I believe that I can at least sever it to the point that it will be permanently disrupted.”

 

Rey used to imagine doing exactly that. In the first few days after… after he had used that _other girl_ , Rey’s thoughts had been filled with so much spite and anger. She’d fantasized about severing their bond piece by piece, and letting Kylo know every step exactly when she was doing it.

 

That was the darkness in her talking. All souls, even her great master, have an element of the Dark within them. It is the conscious choice to resist it that separates the two sides of this war.

 

“Our bond… it was forged by the Light side of the Force. I discovered that when… during a time Kylo was more vulnerable.”

 

Luke’s hand squeezes hers in reassurance. “Yes, Rey, I know that as well. I sensed it and the change in you when you came back to me.”

 

“But why can’t we try to change it more fully? It still has to be destroyed?”

 

It doesn’t make sense. Light should not be destroyed or stopped, it should be developed and made to flourish.

 

“Do you not want to, Rey?”

 

Rey doesn’t know what she wants. All of her thoughts and feeling are in a tangle, and they’re leaving her no room to unravel them. 

 

What does she want?

 

There’s what she wants, and what she knows is the right thing to do.

 

“I want to fix him, Master. I want to do it for his mother, and for all of us.”

 

Luke shakes his head wearily. “He can’t be fixed, child. You must accept this so we can move forward.”

 

The thought of breaking it… She would be so alone again. Surely there has to be another way.

 

“It’s too dangerous, Rey. As you become stronger, you become more and more at risk.”

 

He thinks Kylo will try to use their bond to control her. But, if she becomes more powerful, she’ll be able to resist him all the better.

 

Luke sighs, and the hand on hers loosens and slides away.

 

“Rey, you must ask yourself what your priorities are. Do you want to protect and fight for what’s right, or do you want to hold on to a dream that will never be realized? The choice is yours, but I believe in my heart that you know what to do.”

 

She doesn’t want to do this. But she knows that she has to.

 

“Yes, Master. We need to… at least try. Maybe we won’t be possible.”

 

“Maybe we won’t be,” he agrees. “But the attempt has to be made.”

 

Rey closes her eyes, trying to calm her racing nerves. Instinctively, she touches their bond. It’s pulled tight, blocked off by the walls built up on both sides of it. Is this to be the last time she ever feels it? Does Kylo know what she’s about to do?

 

“Sit back and try to relax, Rey. Control your emotions and command a sense of calm.”

 

Luke makes it sound so easy. As if she could just turn off her fear and embrace nothingness. She wishes she could, but it’s impossible.

 

But she attempts to do as she’s ordered to. Scoots to the head of her bed and adopts the meditation stance. The air is growing colder her breath is starting to fog, so she closes her eyes and rests her back against the wall. 

 

“Are you ready, Rey?”

 

She’s not. She’s suddenly terrified. Filled with a sense of horror that’s so consuming it numbs her to everything else.

 

“Yes, Master. I trust you.”

 

Her words ring hollow. She doesn’t trust him. He’s trying to destroy her. The bond has made her too dangerous now, and he’ll do anything to get back at-

 

_ Kylo _ .

 

He had slipped into her mind again. So he knew what she was about to do, then? He wouldn’t be able to stop her. She won’t let him stop her. 

 

She has to do this for herself. For them both.

 

A warm hand presses against her forehead, startling her. Then she slumps back and fights with the duality of letting her Master into the deepest parts of her mind while simultaneously keeping her other half outside of her completely.

 

The task proves impossible and Kylo refuses to let go.  He p ulls back and hovers as a dark, phantasmal force that lurks in the background, waiting to strike.

 

Luke immediately senses him and, with an indignant huff, throws him unceremoniously out of her mind.

 

“How did you do that?” she whispers, voice full of wonder. That had been _nothing_ to Luke.  No effort. A simple ‘pop’ of the Force and Kylo was blocked out completely.

 

“Ben isn’t nearly as strong as he thinks he is. And we’ll work on that later. I’ll show you how to do it, should you ever find yourself in need again.”

 

_ Now center yourself, Rey. Show me this ‘bond’ of yours so I can examine it. _

 

Her master’s words wrap around her, giving her mind the support it needs to drop its walls. She’s fully shielded from Kylo now, even if their connection is  still vibrant and  thriving.

 

She feels Luke circle it, examining it and now she can see it through his eyes, how it looks from an outsider’s perspective.

 

Their bond has no physical image or imprint, but it feels like a column of energy stretching out from her. It’s layered, a mix of dark and light, and it seems to dissipate like sand in the wind whenever Luke gets too close to it. 

 

_ This is going to be tricky, Rey. Are you ready? _

 

_ I’m… yes. What do I do? _

 

_ Nothing. I’ll do everything. Just concentrate on the feeling of it so I can find it better.  _

 

Rey does so. Yes, it’s a blend of darkness and light. But it’s light at it’s core. Their bond itself is not evil and cruel. One side of it is, yes, but the other is so much-

 

Luke touches it and Rey flinches.  T heir bond  is  not being fooled by the gentleness that the intruder is projecting. He sends a push of the  F orce into it, trying to numb  or reassure it,  but it doesn’t work.  Rey pulls in a massive lungful of air as she prepares to scream. 

 

_ Stop! It hurts! _

 

He pulls away and she opens her eyes. Her vision is blocked by her master’s fingers as he holds her head, and she can feel her eyes begin to burn with unshed tears.

 

“Ben is afraid,” he tells her. “I can feel him now, can you?”

 

She can’t. With her master shielding her mind like this, she can’t feel Kylo at all. Her head is… empty. Is this what it’s going to be like if she goes through with this?

 

“Rey? I can do this. You have to trust me. I didn’t know if it would be possible, but now we both know that it is.”

 

Which both is he talking about? Her, Kylo, or their bond? Their connection -this energy that was once just a Thing to her- is making her feel so protective of it, and Master Luke had barely even touched it. 

 

She won’t be able to go through with this. She can’t.

 

“Shall we try again, Rey? I know this will be painful, but I will do it quickly. You will only have to stand it for a few seconds, and then it will all be over.”

 

Rey nods. Closes her eyes and ignores the heated tracks of her tears on her cheeks.

 

This is a violation. This is wrong.

 

“Let’s get this over with,” she agrees meekly.

 

Luke  presses into her mind again, and she has to drop the walls she’d automatically started to build up. Walls to keep her  m aster out.  Nothing about this is the way that it should be.

 

She screams then,  _really_ screams,  when he  abruptly  seizes their bond. It  t wists and turns,  desperate to get away from him, but he holds it tight.  She feels as he s t arts working his consciousness down to the base of it to where it’s attached to her soul.

 

Somewhere out there, far away in the infinite depths of space,  she can feel how  Kylo is frozen in place. Watching with pure horror and helplessness as her  m aster starts to pry a t the tendrils of their connection. 

 

Kylo doesn’t beg her to stop. At least in this aspect, he has dignity with his defeat.

 

And in the end he doesn’t have to.

 

“Master, no!” she whimpers, and abruptly shoves Luke out of her head.

 

Her mind feels bruised. Aching and petrified with fear.

 

The hand cradling her face pulls away and she starts to cry, curling over and hugging her legs to herself while she sobs into her knees.

 

“Rey.”

 

She can’t bear to look at him. Can’t stand to look within herself and see the damage that has been done.

 

“Rey, why did you do that? Tell me right now.”

 

Master Luke is never one to be angry. Irritated certainly, annoyed or unimpressed occasionally. But this is the closest she’s ever felt to genuine anger radiating off of him.

 

_ We can’t do this _ .

 

She doesn’t trust her voice, so she throws the words out at him. There has to be another way. There must be. 

 

“So what you are saying, Rey,” Luke’s voice is tightly controlled and that makes her sobs even worse, “is that you _don’t want_ to be free of your bond, am I correct in that?”

 

She forces herself to breathe. Tries to calm down and fight back the rising hysteria. 

 

This was what she’d thought she’d wanted: to be finally and forever free of… of being tied to someone so evil. But now that she knows that Kylo is more than that, that her master is wrong. Deep down Kylo is still good inside… the thought of not having this fundamental part of herself ripped out is truly unbearable. 

 

“ _Rey._ ”

 

Her name is needlelike, and she knows that he hasn’t been in her mind but her face was giving everything away anyhow.

 

“Our bond is made of light, Master,” she repeats, her voice barely above a whisper. She’s shaking and choking, but certain with her conviction. 

 

This is a weak excuse and they both know it. Her voice hiccups when she tries to force herself to continue her argument. “Surely something that’s of the light should be-”

 

Luke sharply rises up from his seat next to her, silencing her with the sudden movement.

 

“You don’t want me to get rid of it,” he states, and she’s so very sorry.

 

To Luke, it must seem like such an easy choice. And her refusal is the ultimate in betrayals.

 

“Master, please-”

 

“Then say it, Rey. If this is what you want, you have to say it.”

 

She swallows, desperately trying to find a way to salvage this. But, there’s no way. Kylo took away her choice when he opened himself up to her.

 

“I can’t let you break it. I’m sorry, Master, but I can’t.”

 

Her voice chokes into a whisper part way through. 

 

Luke stares at her with a tightness to his gaze that she’s unfamiliar with. Perhaps this is a test for them both.

 

“Master,” she tries to explain the unexplainable, “the way of the Light… it’s not to do this. We have to try to help him and-”

 

“You don’t know what you’re talking about, child.”

 

Rey stands up then, never willing to give up.

 

“But Master, I do! I really do! Search your feelings but don’t let them get in the way of your better judgment. You’ve told me that a thousand times and now-”

 

“ _Enough._ That’s enough Rey.”

 

A push of the Force at her jaw, soft as it is, silences her immediately. She stares at him with widened eyes as he turns to leave.

 

_Master?_ She presses into him with her mind when she can’t with her voice .  He silences her with a  sharp  wave of his metal hand.

 

“Stay here. I need to collect my thoughts before I say something that I shouldn’t.”

 

He leaves without another word, leaving Rey nervous and more afraid than she’s been since this whole mess started.

 

*

 

If it had been Kylo, that conversation would have gone very differently.

 

If it had been Kylo, Rey would have been cross and unreasonable. But she wouldn’t have been so scared and she wouldn’t have felt utterly defeated.

 

Her pulse is still racing, though it’s impossible to tell whether that was from the recent argument with her master or the nearly heart-stopping terror she’d felt from both sides of their bond only a few minutes before.

 

Rey paces her room, trying to burn off the excess adrenaline and feeling so useless. The hardest part is the not knowing. Waiting for her master to decide her fate. And playing again and again the scene in her mind, wondering what she could have said differently. Or done differently.

 

Should she have let him do it? Would that even have been physically possible? She has another half to herself now, and severing their connection might have been too much for her to withstand.

 

Or maybe it would have been the right thing to do. 

 

But it doesn’t change the fact that, deep down, she couldn’t let it happen. All of her master’s words of caution were exhausting, but also inaccurate. She now knows what her place in the universe is: to become its champion. Like it or not, the future is on her shoulders.

 

But not her shoulders alone. Kylo spoke of how the Force had chosen to give them this bond. She’d hated hearing it at the time, but now she’s ready to see that he was right. The creation of this was out of her power, but what she does with it is purely her own to decide.

 

_ So you are finally accepting it? _

 

Kylo’s phantasmal presence settles behind her. It’s no longer so unwelcome like it once was. She had left the door in her mind open to him, because she couldn’t stand to be alone right now. It had only been a matter of time before he came to her in one form or another.

 

“How long were you watching us?” she whispers, not caring if her master hears her from the other room. When you cohabitate with the most powerful Force user in the universe who happens to be very, very angry with you, there is little pretense for secrecy.

 

_ Long enough to see that you stopped him. Hear how you lied to him.  _

 

She looks over her shoulder. Nothing but the shadows of her steadily darkening room. He feels so real, like he could be right there with her now, and is this what their bond has become?  She waits for him to continue, having very little to say for herself right now.

 

_ You put him on such a pedestal, Rey. Think that he can do no wrong, even when he’s actively trying to destroy you. Such a blind way of thinking is dangerous. _

 

“Gods. Pot, meet kettle.”

 

_ Rey? _

 

“Perhaps you should listen to your own words, Kylo. Aren’t you going to ask me why I couldn’t do it?” 

 

_ No. Because I already know. You couldn’t do it for the same reasons that I never could, either _ .

 

“You’ve thought about breaking it yourself?” she asks, disbelief filling her.

 

A  very long stretch of  quiet falls. Rey is so tired of waiting.

 

_ Constantly,  _ he finally tells her.  _When I first discovered it, when I woke up and you were gone, when I realized that it was making me both weaker and stronger_ .

 

Rey pulls at him, trying to feel for the truth of his words. Their bond is wounded after what she almost let happen and now it burns against her touch. She lets go, feeling freshly guilty that she’ll have to block it off again very soon regardless.

 

_ You’ve been crying. _

 

He seems surprised. Had he actually thought that the chaos of emotions he’d been feeling was all his own?

 

_ What did Skywalker say to you to upset you so much? _

 

“Apparently I’m awaiting my sentencing.”

 

Silence as he considers her words.

 

“Luke didn’t take it well,” she continues, “I’m waiting for him to decide what to do with me.”

 

Rey is unsure of how much if any Kylo could detect of her and her master’s conversation. She’d assumed he’d been shut off from it in it’s entirety, but perhaps her master was partially wrong about the shortcomings of Kylo’s powers. 

 

_ And if he casts you aside? _

 

“He won’t,” she quickly says. “He won’t. I have faith in him.”

 

_ Ah, ‘faith’. And that’s why you’re so scared now? _

 

She has to have faith. It what she was clinging to throughout this whole ordeal. And if her Master was right about all this destiny nonsense…

 

“I hate the word faith. It sounds too much like ‘fate’. It makes it seem like I have no say in anything.”

 

A touch against her face, gone as soon as it comes. They are so far apart now that it’s a wonder she can feel him at all.

 

_ Don’t talk to me about the burdens of fate, Rey. I am a Skywalker, after all. _

 

“Oh, so you finally remembered that little detail about yourself?”

 

_ I never forgot. Though perhaps… perhaps there were times I would have preferred otherwise. _

 

The room is getting darker  as the storm is progressing into the evening . This is taking too long.  Luke should have come in here and told her his decision by now.  The answer is obvious: her  m aster must help her  fulfill her destiny. He  _must_ . 

 

Kylo waits in silence. He must feel her rising agitation. Every second that passes makes her more and more on edge.

 

Waiting. She’s said it before, but the waiting is the absolute worst part of all of this. 

 

Finally, she can’t stand it anymore. She stands up, ready to take control of her own future. Ready to not accept any answer but the one that she wants to hear. 

 

And if she doesn’t hear it…

 

“Kylo?” she turns to the shadowy space that’s filled with him.

 

_ Rey _ .

 

“I won’t turn to the Dark. No matter what happens, I never will. You have to understand that.”

 

_ I do. And I would never ask that if you if you didn’t want it. _

 

That surprises her more than anything he’s ever said or done to her.

 

“If… if this doesn’t… if Luke decides that-”

 

_ Yes. Of course I will, Rey. _

 

With the perfect timing of a deal built on both fate and faith, there’s a knock at her door. She pushes Kylo out of her mind without another word.

 

*

 

“Sometimes, Rey, it takes a fresh set of eyes to really see the truth.”

 

Her master sits on the edge of her bed and patiently allows her to pace the small length of her room like a nervous jackrabbit.

 

“Does it?” she asks, only half paying attention. Wishing so much that he would just get to the point. Rip the bandaid off in one swift move then announce her prognosis.

 

“Yes, it does. I had… even at my age, I had allowed my emotions to get the better of me. I let them mislead me and allowed myself to think the worst of you. For that I apologize.”

 

“Yes, of course. Thank you, Master. Think nothing of it.”

 

Get to the point. Get to the point.  _Get to the point._

 

Luke smiles at her. An honest and open smile and the meaning of it  h its Rey all at once.

 

She gasps, freezing in place to make sure she wasn’t misunderstanding the situation.

 

“Yes? You mean...yes? _Yes I can stay_?”

 

He nods, looking as resigned to his fate as he advised her to become to her own.

 

She squeals, high pitched and ridiculous, and bounds up to him as he recoils slightly. Despite their close friendship, Luke was never one for hugs or physical expressions. Instead, he pats on the mattress next to him and she drops down, sitting on her hands to hide how badly they had been trembling.

 

“Of course you can stay. What kind of Jedi master would I be if I were to turn you away now when you need me the most?”

 

Rey bounces in her seat, grinning so wide her face hurts, and barely able to control herself as joyful relief pours through her.

 

Luke finally sighs, giving in and raising his arm up. Allows her to gracelessly fling herself into his chest in an awkward side-hug. After a few stiff pats to her back she forces herself to detach and he stands up, bringing back a more Master-Padawan appropriate level of formality to the occasion.

 

Rey can’t stop smiling like an idiot and she doesn’t care. Somewhere in the distance she can feel Kylo roll his eyes, but even his telegraphed and sarcastic “ _oh how wonderful, a happy ending_ ” isn’t enough to bring her down.

 

“Get rid of him, please.”

 

“Master?”

 

“Shut my nephew away, if you don’t mind. Though first do let him know that it was his relentless attempts at spying during these last few minutes that ultimately made up my mind for me.”

 

Okay, maybe she had left a teeny-tiny crack in her defense where Kylo could peak through. Just because he was a part of this too, like it or not. And she didn’t like it. Not now and not ever, but that’s okay too. Her master is accepting both her and her faults, she’s finally made peace with ‘The Thing’, and Kylo can go suck an egg. Today was a good day.

 

“Oh, and one more thing” Luke continues. “Tell him that I won’t let him take anything more from me. Throw that one in there before you go, just for good measure.”

 

Really trying to drive the point home, huh? How… petty. Rey likes it. She sends the ‘goodbye, bitch’ messages to Kylo before closing him off. Instantly, her mind feels so full of light and promise.

 

“What… what changed your mind, Master?” she has to ask. Has to know.

 

“ _You_ did, Rey. Your wisdom far beyond your years and the truth of your words. In those final few moments, Ben let go. He was willing to give you up to save you from the pain of being torn from him. It was a selfless act, and one that I hadn’t thought him capable of. I hadn’t realized it until I heard him could feel his soul through yours.”

 

“You were spying on us?”

 

Rey wishes she could read her Master’s expressions better. He’s not angry and no longer disappointed. If anything, he seems slightly _mischievous_.

 

“Of course. You’d invited my nephew into my house. That alone is reason enough to eavesdrop. And you’re not nearly as good at hiding your thoughts as you really should be, Rey.”

 

Her face  flushes . Just what  _else_ had he caught on to? 

 

Luke clears his throat. The room is thankfully dark to hide her warming cheeks.

 

“We’ll work on your… projection problems later, child. First we have a very important project that we have to start on.”

 

Rey had assumed that it would be back to saber forms, meditation, and finite practice. Life as usual on this rocky little island in the middle of the ocean.

 

“Shouldn’t we wait until tomorrow, Master? It’s getting late.”

 

“No time, child,” Luke reaches out a hand to her and she finds it with the Force when her own eyes fail her in the growing darkness. He pulls her up to her feet and shuffles toward the door from her bedroom. “Now follow me, you need to get on the Echo and contact Dameron.”

 

She stops halfway, a feeling of suspicion edging into her mind.

 

“Poe? You want me to talk to Poe? Why?”

 

Even in the distant light from the other room, she can see her master smile as he waits for her to join him. Her hungry stomach growls, casting in a vote on which direction it wants her to go.

 

“Are you familiar with a honey trap, Rey?”

 

No, Rey isn’t. But she also wants to appear smart in front of her master, just in case he has any doubts about his decision.

 

“It has to do with bees, of course. What about it?”

 

He smiles softly, seeing through her pretense so effortlessly.

 

“Not exactly, Rey. You know Dameron far better than I do. Do you believe he would be willing to assist us with performing a minor... hmmm… _deception_?”

 

An idea starts to form about what exactly her master intends. Lying is not the Jedi way. Deceiving, on the other hand… Well, it has a tried and true path that has been built by many on her side. Who is she to get in the way of such tradition?

 

“This ‘deception’, it’s going to be something that will really piss Kylo off, isn’t it?”

 

There’s a twinkle in her master’s eyes when she asks.

 

“Yes. Yes, I imagine it will.”

 

“Then Poe would be beyond hurt if we _don’t_ give him the opportunity.”

 

“Well, we can’t have that, can we?”

 

“No Master, we can’t. But just what is the plan?”

 

Luke sighs, standing up and smoothing down his robes from where Rey’s unwelcome embrace had rumpled them. 

 

“The plan, Rey, is that we’re going to take that little shit down a couple of notches.”

 

His language surprises her. She can feel her eyebrows rise to the top of their range of movement.

 

“Oh.”

 

It’s all she can say. Yes, she thinks Poe is certainly going to be interested in whatever _this_ is going to be about. 

 

With a lightness to her soul that had been absent for far too long, Rey bounces up to her feet. She’s already halfway out the door before her master can turn on the light.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Holy shit, you mean I actually finished one of my WIPs? Holy shit. 
> 
> This series will definitely be continued… eventually. In the mean time, if anyone has any prompts/requests for 1-2shots they’re interested in me tackling, just drop me a line (comment here or email in my profile or on tumblr at ava-dalo.tumblr.com).
> 
> And a huge thanks to everyone who stuck with this to the end! I started Take No Prisoners back in March of this year when I was on vacation and kinda bored and didn’t have any real plans or direction for it. All things considered (and ridiculously long mega chapters aside), I think it turned out pretty well. So again, a big THANK YOU to everyone who read and commented and kept motivating me to keep going, ya’ll are just the best!


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